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T H 



HON. HENRY CLAY, 



N E V\' YORK..: 

PUBLISHED !]Y rilE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY .SOCIETY, 
NU. 143 NASSAU STREET. * 

• • I 839. 



mv.«-* 



No. 9. 

THE 

ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. 



LETTER y^y 



OF 



GERRIT SMITH, 



TO 



HON. HENRY CLAY. 



NEW YORK : 



PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 

NO. 143 NASSAU STREET. 



1839. 



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LETTER. 



Peterboeo, March 21, 1839. 
Hon. Henry Clay : 

Dear Sir, 

In the Annual Meeting of the 
American Colonization Society, held in the Capitol in the city of Wash- 
ington, December, 1835, you commented on a speech made by myself, 
the previous autumn. Your objections to that speech formed the 
principal subject matter of your remarks. Does not this fact some- 
what mitigate the great presumption of which I feel myself guilty, in 
undertaking, all unhonored and humble as I am, to review the produc- 
tion of one of the most distinguished statesmen of the age ? 

Until the appearance of your celebrated speech on the subject of 
slavery, I had supposed that you cherished a sacred regard for the 
right of petition. I now find, that you value it no more highly than 
they do, who make open war upon it. Indeed, you admit, that, in rela- 
tion to this right, " there is no substantial difference between" them 
and yourself. Instead of rebuking, you compliment them ; and, in 
saying that " the majority of the Senate" would not " violate the right 
of petition in any case, in which, according to its judgment, the object 
of the petition could be safely or properly granted," you show to what 
destructive conditions you subject this absolute right. Your doctrine 
is, that in those cases, where the object of the petition is such, as the 
supplicated party can approve, previously to any discussion of its 
merits — there, and there only, exists the right of petition. For aught 
I see, you are no more to be regarded as the friend of this right, than 
is the conspicuous gentleman* who framed the Report on that subject, 
which was presented to the Senate of my state the last month. That 

* Colonel Young. 



gentleman admits the sacredness of " the right to petition on any sub. 
ject ;" and yet, in the same breath, he insists on the equal sacredness 
of the right to refuse to attend to a petition. He manifestly failed to 
bear in mind, that a right to petition implies the correlative right to be 
heard. How different are the statesmen, who insist " on the right to 
refuse to attend to a petition," from Him, who says, " Whoso stoppeth 
his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not 
be heard." And who are poor, if it be not those for whom the aboli- 
tionists cry ? They must even cry by proxy. For, in the language 
of John Quincy Adams, the champion of the right of petition, " The 
slave is not permitted to cry for mercy — to plead for pardon — to utter 
the shriek of perishing nature for relief." It maybe well to remark, 
that the error, which I have pointed out in the Report in question, lies 
in the premises of the principal argument of that paper ; and that the 
correction of this error is necessarily attended with the destruction of 
the premises, and with the overthrow of the argument, which is built 
upon them. 

I surely need not stop to vindicate the right of petition. It is a 
natural right — one that human laws can guarantee, but can neither 
create nor destroy. It is an interesting fact, that the Amendment to 
the Federal Constitution, which guarantees the right of petition, was 
opposed in the Congress of 1789 as superfluous. It was argued, that 
this is " a self-evident, inalienable right, which the people possess," and 
that " it would never be called in question." What a change in 
fifty years ! 

You deny the power of Congress to abolish the inter-state traffic in 
human beings ; and, inasmuch as you say, that the right " to regulate 
commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states," does 
not include the right to prohibit and destroy commerce ; and, inasmuch 
as it is understood, that it was in virtue of the right to regulate com- 
merce, that Congress enacted laws to restrain our participation in the 
" African slave trade," you perhaps also deny, that Congress had the 
power to enact such laws. The history of the times in which the 
Federal Constitution was framed and adopted, justifies the belief, that 
the clause of that instrument under consideration conveys the power, 
which Congress exercised. For instance, Governor Randolph, when 
speaking in the Virginia Convention of 1788, of the clause which de- 
clares, that " the migration or importation of such persons as any of the 
states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited 
by Congress prior to the year 1808," said, " This is an exception from 
the power of regulating comi'nerce, and the restriction is to continue 



only till 1808. Then Congress can, by the exercise of that power, 
prevent future importations." 

Were I, however, to admit that the right " to regulate commerce,' ' 
does not include the right to prohibit and destroy commerce, it never- 
theless would not follow, that Congress might not prohibit or destroy 
certain branches of commerce. It might need to do so, in order to 
preserve our general commerce with a state or nation. So large a 
proportion of the cloths of Turkey might be fraught with the contagion 
of the plague, as to make it necessary for our Government to forbid 
the importation of all cloths from that country, and thus totally destroy 
one branch of our commerce with it, to the end that the other branches 
might be preserved. No inconsiderable evidence that Congress has 
the right to prohibit or destroy a branch of commerce, is to be found 
in the fact, that it has done so. From March, 1794, to May, 1820, it 
enacted several laws, which went to prohibit or destroy, and, in the 
end, did prohibit or destroy the trade of this country with Africa in 
human beings. And, if Congress has the power to pass embargo 
laws, has it not the power to prohibit or destroy commerce alto- 
gether ? 

It is, however, wholly immaterial, whether Congress could prohibit 
our participation in the " African slave trade," in virtue of the clause 
which empowers it "to regulate commerce." That the Constitution 
does, in some one or more of its passages, convey the powex', is mani- 
fest from the testimony of the Constitution itself. The first clause of 
the ninth section says : " The migration or importation of such per- 
sons, as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, 
shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808." Now 
the implication in this clause of the existence of the power in question, 
is as conclusive, as would be the express and positive grant of it. You 
will observe, too, that the power of Congress over " migration or im- 
portation," which this clause implies, is a power not merely to " regu- 
late," as you define the word, but to " prohibit." 

It is clear, then, that Congress had the power to interdict our trade 
in human beings with Africa. But, in view of what has been said on 
that point — in view of the language of the Federal Constitution — of 
the proceedings of the Convention, which framed it — and of the cotem- 
porary public sentiment — is it any less clear, that Congress has the 
power to interdict the inier-state traffic in human beings ? 

There are some, who assert that the words " migration" and " im- 
portation," instead of referring, as I maintain they do— the former to 
the removal of slaves from state to state, and the latter to their intro- 



duction from Africa — are used in the Constitution as synonyms, and 
refer exclusively to the " African slave trade." But there is surely 
no ground for the imputation of such utter tautology, if we recollect 
that the Constitution was written by scholars, and that remarkable 
pains were taken to clear it of all superfluous words — a Conamittee 
having been appointed for that special purpose. But, it may be asked, 
Why, in reference to the taking of slaves from one state to another, 
use the word " migration," which denotes voluntary removal ? One 
answer is — that it can be used with as much propriety in that case, as 
in the removal of slaves from Africa — the removal in the one case 
being no less involuntary than in the other. Another answer is — that 
the framers of the Constitution selected the word " migration," because 
of its congruity with that of "persons," under which their virtuous shame 
sought to conceal from posterity the existence of seven hundred thou- 
sand slaves amongst a people, who had but recently entered upon 
their national career, with the solemn declaration, that " all men are 
created equal." 

John Jay, whose great celebrity is partly owing to his very able ex- 
positions of the Constitution, says : " To me, the constitutional author- 
ity of the Congress to prohibit the migration and importation of slaves 
into any of the states, does not appear questionable." If the disjunctive 
between " migration" and " importation" in the Constitution, argues 
their reference to the same thing, Mr. Jay's copulative argues more 
strongly, that, in his judgment, they refer to different things. 

The law of Congress constituting the " Territory of Orleans," was 
enacted in 1804. It fully recognizes the power of that body to prohibit 
the trade in slaves between a territory and the states. But, if Con- 
gress had this power, why had it not as clear a power to prohibit, at 
that time, the trade in slaves between any two of the states ? It might 
have prohibited it, but for the constitutional suspension of the exercise 
of the power. The term of that suspension closed, however, in 1808 ; 
and, since that year, Congress has had as full power to abolish the 
whole slave trade between the states, as it had in 1804 to abolish the 
like trade between the Territory of Orleans and the states. 

But, notwithstanding the conclusive evidence, that the Constitution 
empowers Congress to abolish the inter-state slave trade, it is incom- 
prehensibie to many, that such states as Virginia and Maryland should 
have consented to deprive themselves of the benefit of selling their 
slaves into other states. It is incomprehensible, only because they 
look upon such states in the light of their present character and present 



interests. It will no longer be so, if they will bear in mind, that slave 
labor was then, as it is now, unprofitable for ordinary agriculture, 
and that "Whitney's cotton-gin, which gave great value to such labor, 
was not yet invented, and that the purchase of Louisiana, which has 
had so great an effect to extend and perpetuate the dominion of slave- 
ry, was not yet made. It will no longer be incomprehensible to them, 
if they will recollect, that, at the period in question, American slavery 
was regarded as a rapidly decaying, if not already expiring institution. 
It will no longer be so, if they will recollect, how small was the price 
of slaves then, compared with their present value ; and that, during the 
ten years, which followed the passage of the Act of Virginia in 1782, 
legalizing manumissions, her citizens emancipated slaves to the number 
of nearly one-twentieth of the whole amount of her slaves in that year. 
To learn whether your native Virginia clung in the year 1787 to the 
inter-state traffic in human flesh, we must take our post of observation, 
not amongst her degenerate sons, who, in 1836, sold men, women, and 
children, to the amount of twenty -four millions of dollars — not amongst 
her President Dews, who write books in favor of breeding human 
stock for exportation — but amongst her Washingtons, and Jeffersons, 
and Henrys, and Masons, who, at the period when the Constitution was 
framed, freely expressed their abhorrence of slavery. 

But, however confident you may be, that Congress has not the lawful 
power to abolish the branch of commerce in question ; nevertheless, 
would the abolition of it be so clearly and grossly unconstitutional, as 
to justify the contempt with which the numerous petitions for the mea. 
sure are treated, and the impeachment of their fidelity to the Constitu- 
tion, and of their patriotism and purity, which the petitioners are made 
to endure? 

I was about to take it for granted, that, although you deny the power 
of Congress to abolish the inter-state traffic in human beings, you do not 
justify the traffic — when I recollected the intimation in your speech, that 
there is no such traffic. For, when you speak of "the slave trade between 
the states," and add — " or, as it is described in abolition petitions, the 
traffic in human beings between the states" — do you not intimate there is 
no such traffic ? Whence this language ? Do you not believe slaves are 
human beings ? And do you not believe that they suffer under the 
disruption of the dearest earthly ties, as human beings suffer ? I will 
not detain you to hear what we of the North think of this internal 
slave trade. But I will call your attention to what is thought of it in 
your own Kentucky and in your native Virginia. Says the " Address 



\ 



of the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky to the Churches in 1835 :" — 
" Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, are 
torn asunder, and permitted to see each other no more. Those acts 
are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and the agony 
often witnessed on such occasions, proclaim with a trumpet tongue the 
iniquity and cruelty of the system. There is not a neighborhood 
where these heart-rending scenes are not displayed. There is not a 
village or road that does not behold the sad procession of manacled 
outcasts, whose chains and mournful countenances tell that they are 
exiled by force from all that their hearts hold dear." Says Thomas 
Jefferson Randolph, in the Virginia Legislature in 1832, when speak- 
ing of this trade : " It is a practice, and an increasing practice, in parts 
.of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an honourable mind, 
h patriot, and a lover of his country, bear to see this ancient dominion, 
rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons 
in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie, where men 
are to be reared for the market like oxen for the shambles. Is it 
better — is it not worse than the (foreign) slave trade — that trade which 
enlisted the labor of the good and wise of every creed and every clime 
tc/SB&feh ? The (foreign) trader receives the slave, a stranger in 
language, aspect, and manner, from the merchant who has brought 
him^from the interior. The ties of father, mother, husband, and child, 
have already been rent in twain ; before he receives him, his soul has 
become callous. But here, sir, individuals whom the master has 
known from infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gam- 
bols of childhood — who have been accustomed to look to him for pro- 
tection, he tears from the mother's arms, and sells into a strange 
country — among strange people, subject to cruel taskmasters." 

You are in favor of increasing the number of slave states. The 
terms of the celebrated " Missouri compromise" warrant, in your judg- 
ment, the increase. But, notwithstanding you admit, that this unholy 
compromise, in which tranquillity was purchased at the expense of hu- 
manity and righteousness, does not " in terms embrace the case," and 
" is not absolutely binding and obligatory ;" you, nevertheless, make 
no attempt whatever to do away any one of the conclusive objections, 
which are urged against such increase. You do not attempt to show 
hovv the multiplication of slave states can consist with the constitutional 
duty of the " United States to guarantee to every state in the Union a 
republican form of government," any more than if it were perfectly 
clear, that a government is republican under which one half of the 



9 

people are lawfully engaged in buying and selling the other half ; or 
than if the doctrine that " all men are created equal" were not the 
fundamental and distinctive doctrine of a republican government. You 
no more vindicate the proposition to enlarge the realm of slavery, than 
if th3 proposition were as obviously in harmony with, as it is opposed 
to the anti-slavery tenor and policy of the Constitution — the rights of 
man — and the laws of God. 

You are perhaps of the number of those, who, believing, that a state 
can change its Constitution as it pleases, deem it futile in Congress to 
require, that States, on entering the Union, shall have anti-slavery 
Constitutions. The Framers of the Federal Constitution doubtless 
foresaw the possibility of treachery, on the part of the new States, in 
the matter of slavery : and the restriction in that instrument to the old 
States — " the States now existing" — of the right to participate in the 
internal and " African slave trade" may be ascribed to the motive of 
diminishing, if not indeed of entirely preventing, temptation to such 
treachery. The Ordinance concerning the North-west Territory, 
passed by the Congress of 1787, and ratified by the Congress of 1790, 
shows, so far as those bodies can be regarded as correct interpreters of 
the Constitution which was framed in 1787, and adopted in 1739, that 
slavery was not to have a constitutional existence in the new States. 
The Ordinance confines the privilege of recapturing fugitive slaves in 
the North-west Territory to the " existing States." Slaves in that ter- 
ritory, to be the subjects of lawful recapture, must in the language of 
the Ordinance, owe "labour or service in one of the original States." 

I close what I have to say on this topic, with the remark, that were 
it admitted, that the reasons for the increase of the number of slave 
States are sound and satisfactory, it nevertheless would not follow, that 
the moral and constitutional wrong of preventing that increase is so 
palpable, as to justify the scorn and insult, which are heaped by Con- 
gress upon this hundred thousand petitioners for this measure. 

It has hitherto been supposed, that you distinctly and fully admit- 
ted the Constitutional power of Congress to abolish slavery in the 
District of Columbia. But, on this point, as on that of the right of 
petition, you have for reasons known to yourself, suddenly and greatly 
changed your tone. Whilst your speech argues, at no small length, 
that Congress has not the right to abolish slavery in the District, all 
that it says in favor of the Constitutional power to abolish it, is that 
'• the language (of the Constitution) may possibly be sufficiently com- 
prehensive to include a power of abolition." " Faint praise dams ;" 
2 



10 

and your very reluctant and qualified concession of the Constitutional 
power under consideration, is to be construed, rather as a denial than 
a concession. 

Until I acquire the skill of making white whiter, and black blacker, 
I shall have nothing to say in proof of the Constitutional power of Con- 
gress over slavery in the District of Columbia, beyond referring to the 
terms, in which the Constitution so plainly conveys this power. That 
instrument authorises Congress " to exercise exclusive legislation in all 
cases whatsoever over such District." If these words do not con- 
fer the power, it is manifest that no words could confer it. I will add 
that, never, until the last few years, had doubts been expressed, that these 
words do fully confer that power. 

You will, perhaps, say, that Virginia and Maryland made their 
cessions of the territory, which constitutes the District of Columbia, 
with reservations on the subject of slavery. We answer, that none 
were expressed ;* and that if there had been, Congress would not, and 
in view of the language of the Constitution, could not, have accepted 
the cessions. You may then say, that they would not have ceded the 
territory, had it occurred to them, that Congress would have cleared it 
of slavery ; and that, this being the fact, Congress could not thus clear 
it, without being guilty of bad faith, and of an ungenerous and unjusti- 
fiable surprise on those States. There are several reasons for believ- 
ing, that those States, not only did not, at the period in question, cherish 
a dread of the abolition of slavery ; but that the public sentiment within 
them was decidedly in favor of its speedy abolition. At that period, 
their most distinguished statesmen were trumpet-tongued against sla- 
very. At that period, there was both a Virginia and a Maryland soci- 

* There is a proviso in the Act of Virginia. It was on this, that three years 
ago, in the Senate of the United States, Benjamin Watkins Leigh built his argu- 
ment against the constitutional power of Congress to abolish slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. I well remember that you tlien denied the soundness of his 
argument. This superfluous proviso virtually forbids Congress to pass laws, 
which shall " affect the rights of individuals" in the ceded territory. Amongst 
the inviolable "rights" was that of holding slaves, as Mr. Leigh contended. 
I regret, that, in replying to him, you did not make use of the fact, that all the 
members of Congress from Virginia voted in favor of the Ordinance, which 
abolished slavery in the North- West Territory ; and this too, notwithstanding, 
that, in the Act of 1784, by which she ceded the North- West Territory to the 
Confederacy, she provided, that the " citizens of Virginia" in the said Territory, 
many of whom held slaves, should " be protected in the enjoyment of tlieu- 
rights." This fact furnishes striking evidence that at, or about, the time of the 
cession by Virginia of her portion of the District of Columbia, her statesmen be- 
lieved, that the right to hold slaves in those portions of our country under the ex- 
clusive jurisdiction of Congress, was not beyond the reach of the controlling power 
of Congress. 



11 

ety " for promoting the abolition of slavery ;" and, it was then, that, 
with the entire consent of Virginia and Maryland, effectual measures 
were adopted to preclude slavery from that large territory, which has 
since eiven Ohio and several other States to the Union. On this sub- 
ject, as on that of the inter-state slave trade, we misinterpret Virginia 
and Maryland, by not considering, how unlike was their temper in re- 
lation to slavery, amidst the decays and dying throes of that institution 
half a century ago, to what it is now, when slavery is not only revivi- 
fied, but has become the predominant interest and giant power of the 
nation. We forget, that our whole country was, at that time, smitten 
with love for the holy cause of impartial and universal liberty. To 
judge correctly of the view, which our Revolutionary fathers took of 
oppression, we must go back and stand by their side, in their struggles 
against it, — we must survey them through the medium of the anti- 
slavery sentiment of their own times, and not impute to them the 
pro-slavery spirit so rampant in ours. 

I will, however, suppose it true, that Virginia and Maryland would not 
have made the cessions in question, had they foreseen, that Congress 
would abolish slavery in the District of Columbia : — and yet, I affirm, 
that it would be the duty of Congress to abolish it. Had there been 
State Prisons in the territory, at the time Congress acquired juris- 
diction over it, and had Congress immediately opened their doors, and 
turned loose hundreds of depraved and bloody criminals, there would 
indeed have been abundant occasion for complaint. But, had the ex- 
ercise of its power in the premises extended no farther than to the 
liberation of such convicts, as, on a re-examination of their cases, were 
found to be clearly guiltless of the crimes charged upon them, the 
sternest justice could not have objected to such an occasion for the re- 
joicing of mercy. And are not the thousands in the District, for 
whose liberation Congress is besought, unjustly deprived of their liberty? 
Not only are they guiltless, but they are even unaccused of such 
crimes, as in the judgment of any, justly work a forfeiture of liberty. 
And what do Virginia and Maryland ask ? Is it, that Congress shall 
resubject to their control those thousands of deeply wronged men ? 
No — fjrthis Congress cannot do. They ask, that Congress shall fulfil 
the tyrant wishes of these States. They ask, that the whole people of 
the United States — those who hate, as well as those who love slavery, 
shall, by their representatives, assume the guilty and awful responsi- 
bility of perpetuating the enslavement of their innocent fellow men : 
— of chaining the bodies and crushing the wills, and blotting out the 
minds of such, as have neither transgressed, nor even been accused 
of having transgressed, a single human law. And the crime, which 



12 

Virginia and Maryland, and they, who sympathise with them, would 
have the nation perpetrate, is, not simply that of prolonging the 
captivity of those, who were slaves before the cession — for but a hand- 
ful of them are now remaining in the District. Most of the present num- 
ber became slaves under the authority of this guilty nation. Their 
wrongs originated with Congress : and Congress is asked, not only to 
perpetuate their oppression, but to fasten the yoke of slavery on gene- 
rations yet unborn. 

There are those, who advocate the recession of the District of Co- 
lumbia. If the nation were to consent to this, without having previ- 
ously exercised her power to " break every yoke" of slavery in the 
District, the blood of those so cruelly left there in "the house of bond- 
age," would remain indelible and damning upon her skirts : — and this 
too, whether Virginia and Maryland did or did not intend to vest Con- 
gress with any power over slavery. It is enough, that the nation has 
the power " to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that 
are ready to be slain," to make her fearfully guilty before God, if she 
" forbear" to exercise it. 

Suppose, I were to obtain a lease of my neighbor's barn for the 
single and express purpose of securing my crops ; and that I should 
find, chained up in one of its dark corners, an innocent fellow man, 
whom that neighbor was subjecting to the process of a lingering death ; 
ought I to pause and recall President Wayland's, " Limitations of 
Human Responsibility," and finally let the poor sufierer remain in his 
chains ; or ought I not rather, promptly to respond to the laws of my 
nature and my nature's God, and let him go free ? But, to make this 
case analogous to that we have been considering — to that, which im- 
poses its claims on Congress — we must strike out entirely the condi- 
tion of the lease, and with it all possible doubts of my right to release 
the victim of my neighbor's murderous hate. 

I am entirely willing to yield, for the sake of argument, that Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, when ceding the territory which constitutes the 
District of Columbia, did not anticipate, and did not choose the aboU- 
tion of slavery iu it. To make the admission stronger, I will allow, 
that these States were, at the time of the cession, as warmly opposed 
to the abolition of slavery in the District as they are said to be now : 
and to make it stronger still, I will allow, that the abolition of slavery 
in the District would prove deeply injurious, not only to Virginia and 
Maryland but to the nation at large. And, after all these admissions, I 
must still insist, that Congress is under perfectly plain moral obligation 
to abolteh slavery in the District of Columbia. 



13 

They," who are deterred from favoring the abolition of sla- 
very in the District by the apprehension, that Virginia and Mary- 
land, if not, indeed, the nation at large, might suffer injurious conse- 
quences from the measure, overlook the fact, that there is a third party 
in the case. It is common to regard the nation as constituting one of 
the parties — Virginia and Maryland another, and the only other. 
But in point of fact, there is a third party. Of wliat does it consist ? 
Of horses, oxen, and other brutes ? Then we need not be greatly con- 
cerned about it — since its rights in that case, would be obviously sub- 
ordinate to those of the other parties. Again, if such be the composi- 
tion of this third party, we are not to be greatly troubled, that Presi- 
dent Wayland and thousands of others entirely overlook its rights and 
interests ; though they ought to be somewhat mindful even of brutes. 
But, this third party is composed, not of brutes — but of men — of the 
seven thousand men in the District, who have fallen under the iron 
hoofs of slavery — and who, because they are men, have rights equal to, 
and as sacred as the rights of any other men — rights, moreover, which 
cannot be innocently encroached on, even to the breadth of one hair, 
whether under the plea of " state necessity" — of the perils of emanci- 
pation — or under any other plea, which conscience-smitten and cow. 
ardly tyranny can suggest. 

If these lines shall ever be so favored, as to fall under the eye of the 
venerable and beloved John Quincy Adams, I beg, that, when he 
shall have read them, he will solemnly inquire of his heart, whether, if 
he should ever be left to vote against the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia, and thus stab deeply the cause of civil liberty, of 
.humanity, and of God ; the guilty act would not result from overlook, 
ing the rights and interests, and even the existence itself, of a third 
party in the case — and from considering the claims of the nation and 
those of Virginia and Maryland, as the only claims on which he was 
called to pass, because they were the claims of the only parties, of 
which he was aware. 

You admit that " the first duty of Congress in relation to the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, is to render it available, comfortable, and conveni. 
ent as a seat of government of the whole Union." I thank you for an 
admission, which can be used, with great effect, against the many, 
who maintain, that Congress is as much bound'to consult the interests 
and wishes of the inhabitants of the District, and be governed by them, 
as a State Legislature is to study and serve the interests and wishes of 
its constituents. The inhabitants of the District have taken up their 
residence in it, aware, that the paramount object of Congressional 



14 

legislation is not their, but the nation's advantage. They judo-e, that 
their disfranchisement and the other disadvantages attending their resi- 
dence are more than balanced by their favorable position for partici- 
pating in Governmental patronage and other benefits. They know, that 
they have no better right to complain, that the legislation of Congress 
is not dictated by a primary regard to their interests, than has the 
Colonization Society, of which you are President, to complain, that 
the Capitol, in which it holds its annual meetings, is not constructed 
and fitted up in the best possible manner for such occasions. They 
know, that to sacrifice the design and main object of that building to 
its occasional and incidental uses, would be an absurdity no gi'cater 
than would Congress be guilty of in shaping its legislation to the views 
of the thirty thousand white inhabitants of the District of Columbia, at 
the expense of neglecting the will and interests of the nation. 

You feel, that there is no hazard in your admission, that the para- 
mount object in relation to the District of Columbia, is its suitableness 
for a seat of Government, since you accompany that admission with 
the denial, that the presence of slavery interferes with such suitable- 
ness. But is it not a matter of deep regret, that the place, in 
which our national laws are made — that the place from which 
the sentiment and fashion of the whole country derive so much of 
their tone and direction — should cherish a system, which you have 
often admitted, is at war with the first principles of our religion and 
civil polity ;* and the influences of which are no less pervading and 
controlling than corrupting ? Is it not a matter of deep regret, that 
they, whom other governments send to our own, and to. whom, on 
account of their superior intellect and influence, it is our desire, as it • 
is our duty, to commend our free institutions, should be obliged to learn 
their lessons of practical republicanism amidst the monuments and 
abominations of slavery ? Is it no objection to the District of Colum- 
bia, as the seat of our Government, that slavery, which concerns the 
political and moral interests of the nation, more than any other sub. 
ject coming within the range of legislation, is not allowed to be dis- 
cussed there — either within or without the Halls of Congress ? It is 
one of the doctrines of slavery, that slavery shall not be discussed. 
Some of its advocates are frank enough to avow, as the reason for this 
prohibition, that slavery cannot bear to be discussed. In your speech 
before the American Colonization Society in 1835, to which I have 
referred, you distinctly take the ground, that slavery is a subject not 

* " It (slavery) is a sin and a curse both to the master and the slave." — Henry 
Clay. 



15 

open to general discussion. Very far am I from believing, that you 
would employ, or intentionally countenance violence, to prevent such 
discussion. Nevertheless, it is to this doctrine of non-discussion, 
which you and others put forth, that the North is indebted for her pro- 
slavery mobs, and the South for her pro-slavery Lynchings. The 
declarations of such men as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, that 
slavery is a question not to be discussed, are a license to mobs to burn 
up halls and break up abolition meetings, and destroy abolition presses, 
and murder abolition editors. Had such men held the opposite doc- 
trine, and admitted, yea, and insisted, as it was their duty to do, that 
every question in morals and politics is a legitimate subject of free 
discussion — the District of Columbia would be far less objectionable, 
as the seat of our Government. In that case the lamented Dr. Cran- 
dall would not have been seized in the city of Washington on the sus- 
picion of being an abolitionist, and thrown into prison, and subjected to 
distresses of mind and body, which resulted in his premature death. 
Had there been no slavery in the District, this outrage would not have 
been committed ; and the murders, chargeable on the bloodiest of all 
bloody institutions, would have been one less than they now are. 
Talk of the slaveholding District of Columbia being a suitable locality 
for the seat of our Government ! Why, Sir, a distinguished member of 
Congress was threatened there with an indictment for the crime of pre- 
senting, or rather of proposing to present, a petition to the body with 
which he was connected ! Indeed the occasion of the speech, on which 
I am now commenting, was the impudent protest of inhabitants of that 
District against the right of the American people to petition their own 
Congress, in relation to matters of vital importance to the seat of their 
own Government ! I take occasion here to admit, that I have seen but 
references to this protest — not the protest itself. I presume, that it is 
not dissimilar, in its spirit, to the petition presented about the same 
time by Mr. Moore in the other House of Congress — his speech on 
which, he complains was ungenerously anticipated by yours on 
the petition presented by yourself. As the petition presented by Mr. 
Moore is short, I will copy it, that I may say to you with the more effect — 
how unfit is the spirit of a slaveholding people, as illustrated in this 
petition, to be the spirit of the people at the seat of a free Government ! 

" To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States : 

The petition of the undersigned, citizens of the District of Columbia 

represents — That they have witnessed with deep regret the attempts 



16 

which are making to disturb the integrity of the Union by a band of 
FANATICS, embracing men, women, and children, who cease not day 
and night to crowd the tables of your halls with seditious memorials 
— and solicit your honorable bodies that you will, in your wisdom, 
henceforth give neither support nor countenance to such unhallowed 
attempts, but that you will, in the most emphatic manner, set the seal 
of your disapprobation upon all such foul and unnatural efforts, 
by refusing not only to read and refer, but also to receive any pa- 
pers which either directly or indirectly, or by implication, aim at any 
interference with the rights of your petitioners, or of those of any citi- 
zen of any of the States or Territories of the United States, or of this 
District of which we are inhabitants." 

A Legislature should be imbued with a free, independent, fearless 
spirit. But it cannot be, where discussion is overawed and interdicted, 
or its boundaries at all contracted. Wherever slavery reigns, the free- 
dom of discussion is not tolerated : and wherever slavery exists, there 
slavery reigns ; — reigns too with that exclusive spirit of Turkish des- 
potism, that, "bears no brother near the throne." 

You agree with President Wayland, that it is as improper for 
Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, as to create it 
in some place in the free States, over which it has jurisdiction. As im- 
proper, in the judgment of an eminent statesman, and of a no less eminent 
divine, to destroy what they both admit to be a system of unrighteous- 
ness, as to establish it ! As improper to restrain as to practice, a vio- 
lation of God's law ! What will other countries and coming ages 
think of the politics of our statesmen and the ethics of our divines ? 

But, besides its immorality, Congress has no Constitutional right to 
create slavery. You have not yet presumed to deny positively, that 
Congress has the right to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia ; 
and, notwithstanding the intimation in your speech, you will not pre- 
sume to affirm, that Congress has the Constitutional right to enact 
laws reducing to, or holding in slavery, tne inhabitants of West Point, 
or any other locality in the free States, ove rwhich it has exclusive juris- 
diction. I would here remark, that the law of Congress, which reviv- 
ed the operation of the laws of Virginia and Maryland in the District 
of Columbia, being, so far as it respects the slave laws of those States, 
a violation of the Federal Constitution, should be held of no avail to- 
wards legalizing slavery in the District — and the subjects of that slavery, 
should, consequently, be declared by our Courts unconditionally 
free. 

You will admit that slavery is a system of surpassing injustice : — 



17 

but an avowed object of the Constitution is to " establish justice." 
You will admit that it utterly annihilates the liberty of its victims : — 
but another of the avowed objects of the Constitution is to " secure the 
blessings of liberty." You will admit, that slavery does, and neces- 
sarily must, regard its victims as chattels. The Constitution, on the 
contrary, speaks of them as nothing short of persons. Roger Sher- 
man, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a framer of the 
Federal Constitution, and a member of the first Congress under it, 
denied that this instrument considers slaves " as a species of property." 
Mr. Madison, in the 54th No, of the Federalist admits, that the Con- 
stitution " regards them as inhabitants." Many cases might be cited, 
in which Congress has, in consonance with the Constitution, refused 
to recognize slaves us property. It was the expectation, as well as 
the desire of the framers of the Constitution, that slavery should soon 
cease to exist in our country ; and, but for the laws, which both Con- 
gress and the slave Slates, have, in flagrant violation of the letter and 
spirit and obvious policy of the Constitution, enacted in behalf of sla- 
very, that vice would, ere this, have disappeared from our land. Look, 
for instance, at the laws enacted in the face of the clause : " The citi- 
zens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities 
of citizens in the several States" — laws too, which the States that 
enacted them, will not consent to repeal, until they consent to abandon 
slavery. It is by these laws, that they shut out the colored people of 
the North, :he presence of a single individual of whom so alarms 
them with the prospect of a servile insurrection, that they immediately 
imprison him. Such was the view of the Federal Constitution taken 
by .lames Wilson one of its framers, that, without, as I presume, 
claiming for Congress any direct power over slavery in the slave 
States, he declared that it possessed " power to exterminate slavery 
from within our borders." It was probably under a like view, that 
Benjamin Franklin, another of its framers, and Benjamin Rush, a 
signer of the Declaration of Independence, and other men of glorious 
and blessed memory, petitioned the first Congress under the Constitu- 
tion to " countenance the restoration to liberty of those unhappy men," 
(the slaves of our country). And in what light that same Congress 
viewed the Constitution may be inferred from the fact, that, by a spe- 
cial act, it ratified the celebrated Ordinance, by the terms of which 
slavery was forbidden for ever in the North West Territory. It is 
worthy of note, that the avowed object of the Ordinance harmonizes 
with that of the Constitution : and that the Ordinance was passed the 
same year that the Constitution was drafted, is a fact, on which we 
3 



18 

can strongly rely to justify a reference to the spirit of the one instru- 
ment for illustrating the spirit of the other. What the spirit of the 
Ordinance is, and in what light they who passed it, regarded " repub- 
lies, their laws and constitutions," may be inferred from the following 
declaration in the Ordinance of its grand object : " For extending the 
fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the 
basis wherever these Republics, their laws and constitutions are 
erected ; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, 
constitutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed 
in the said territory, &ic. ; it is hereby ordained and declared that the 
following articles, &c." One of these articles is that, which has been 
referred to, and which declares that " there shall be neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude in the said territory." 

You will perhaps make light of my reference to James Wilson and 
Benjamin Franklin, for I recollect you say, that, " When the Consti- 
tution was about going into operation, its powers were not well under- 
stood by the community at large, and remained to be accurately inter- 
preted and defined." Nevertheless, I think it wise to repose more 
confidence in the views, which the framers of the Constitution took of 
the spirit and principles of that instrument, than in the definitions and 
interpretations of the pro-slavery generation, which has succeeded them. 

It should be regarded as no inconsiderable evidence of the anti-sla- 
very genius and policy of the Constitution, that Congress promptly 
interdicted slavery in the first portion of territory, and that, too, a ter- 
ritory of vast extent, over which it acquired jurisdiction. And is it 
not a perfectly reasonable supposition, that the seat of our Government 
would not have been polluted by the presence of slavery, had Congress 
acted on that subject by itself, instead of losing sight of it in the whole- 
sale legislation, by which the laws of Virginia and Maryland were 
revived in the District ? 

If the Federal Constitution be not anti-slavery in its general scope 
and character ; if it be not impregnated with the principles of universal 
liberty ; why was it necessary, in order to restrain Congress, for a 
limited period, from acting against the slave trade, which is but a 
branch or incident of slavery, to have a clause to that end in the Con- 
stitution ? The fact that the framers of the Constitution refused to 
blot its pages with the word " slave" or " slavery ;" and that, by peri- 
phrase and the substitution of " persons" for "slaves," they sought to 
conceal from posterity and the world the mortifying fact, that slavery 
existed under a government based on the principle, that govern- 



19 

ments derive " their just powers from the consent of the governed," 
contains volumes of proof, that they looked upon American slavery as 
a decaying institution ; and that they would naturally shape the Con- 
stitution to the abridgment and the extinction, rather than the exten- 
sion and perpetuity of the giant vice of the country. 

It is not to be denied, that the Constitution tolerates a limited mea- 
sure of slavery : but it tolerates this measure only as the exception 
to its rule of impartial and universal liberty. Were it otherwise, 
the principles of that instrument could be peaded to justify the holding 
of men as property, in cases, other than those specifically provided for 
in it. Were it otherwise, these principles might be appealed to, as 
well to sanction the enslavement of men, as the capture of wild beasts. 
Were it otherwise, the American people might be Constitutionally 
realizing the prophet's declaration : " they all lie in wait for blood : 
they hunt every man his brother with a net." But mere principles, 
whether in or out of the Constitution, do not avail to justify and uphold 
slavery. Says Lord Mansfield in the famous Somerset case : " The 
state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being now 
introduced by courts of justice upon mere reasoning or inferences 
from any principles, natural or political ; it must take its rise from 
positive law ; the origin of it can in no country or age be traced back 
to any other source. A case so odious as the condition of slaves, 
must be taken strictly." Grotius says, that " slavery places man in 
an unnatural relation to man — a relation which nothing but positive 
law can sustain." All are aware, that, by the common law, man 
cannot have property in man ; and that wherever that law is not coun- 
teracted on this point by positive law, " slaves cannot breathe," and 
their " shackles fall." I scarcely need add, that the Federal Consti- 
tution does, in the main, accord with the common law. In the words 
of a very able writer : " The common law is the grand element of the 
United States Constitution. All its fundamental provisions are in- 
stinct with its spirit ; and its existence, principles, and paramount 
authority, are presupposed and assumed throughout the whole." 

To argue the anti-slavery character of the Federal Constitution, it is 
not necessary to take the high ground of some, that whatever in the 
Constitution favors slavery is void, because opposed to the principles 
and o-eneral tenor of that instrument. Much less is it necessary to 
take the still higher ground, that every law in favor of slavery, in what- 
ever code or connection it may be found, is utterly invalid because of 
its plain contravention of the law of nature. To maintain my position, 
that the Constitution is anti-slavery in its general character, and that 



20 

constitutional slavery is, at the most, but an exception to that general 
character, it was not necessary to take either of these grounds ; — 
though, had I been disposed to take even the higher of them, I 
should not have lacked the countenance of the most weighty authori- 
ties. "The law of nature," says Blackstone, " being coeval with 
mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obli- 
gation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, 
and at all times : no human laws are of any validity if contrary to 
this." The same writer says, that " The law of nature requires, that 
man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness." But that 
slavery allows this pursuit to its victims, no one will pretend. " There 
is a law," says Henry Brougham, "above all the enactments of human 
codes. It is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man ; 
and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, 
and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject with indignation 
the wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man." 
I add no more to what I have said on the subject of slavery in 
the District of Columbia, than to ask, as I have done in relation to the 
inter-state slave trade and the annexation of slave states, whether peti- 
tions for its abolition argue so great a contempt of the Constitution, 
and so entire a recklessness of propriety, as to merit the treatment 
which they receive at the hands of Congress. Admitting that Congress 
has not the constitutional power to abolish slavery in the District — ad- 
mitting that it has not the constitutional power to destroy what itself 
has established — admitting, too, that if it have the power, it ought not 
to exercise it; — nevertheless, is the case so perfectly clear, that the 
petitioners for the measure deserve all the abuse and odium which 
their representatives in Congress heap upon them ? In a word, do not 
the three classes of petitions to which you refer, merit, at the hands 
of those representatives, the candid and patient consideration which, 
until I read your acknowledgment, that, in relation to these petitions, 
"there is no substantial difference between" yourself and those, who 
are in favor of thrusting them aside undebated, unconsidered, and even 
unread, I always supposed you were willing to have bestowed on 
them ? 

I pass to the examination of your charges against the aboli- 
tionists. 

They contemn the '■^rights of property. ^^ 

This charge you prefer against the abolitionists, not because they 
believe that a Legislature has the right to abolish slavery, nor because 
they deny that slaves are legally property ; for this obvious truth they 



21 

do not deny. But you prefer it, because they believe that man cannot 

rightfully be a subject of property. 

Abolitionists believe, to use words, which I have already quoted, that 
it is "a wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man." 
They believe, that to claim property in the exalted being, whom God 
has made in His own image, and but " a little lower than the angels," 
is scarcely less absurd than to claim it in the Creator himself. You 
take the position, that human laws can rightfully reduce a race of men 
to property ; and that the outrage, to use your own language, is " sane- 
tioned and sanctified" by " two hundred years" continuance of it. 
Abolitionists, on the contrary, trace back man's inalienable self-owner- 
ship to enactments of the Divine Legislator, and to the bright morning 
of time, when he came forth from the hand of his Maker, " crowned 
with glory and honor," invested with self-control, and with dominion 
over the brute and inanimate creation. You soothe the conscience of 
the slaveholder, by reminding him, that the relation, which he has as- 
sumed towards his down-trodden fellow-man, is lawful. The aboli- 
tionist protests, that the wickedness of the relation is none the less, be- 
cause it is legalized. In charging abolitionists with contemning " the 
rights of property," you mistake the innocent for the guilty party. 
Were you to be so unhappy as to fall into the hands of a kidnapper, 
and be reduced to a slave, and were I to remonstrate, though in vain, 
with your oppressor, who would you think was the despiser of " the 
rights of property" — myself, or the oppressor ? As you would judge 
in that case, so judges every slave in his similar case. 

The man-stealer's complaint, that his " rights of property" in his 
stolen fellow men are not adequately respected by the abolitionist, re- 
cals to my mind a very similar, and but little more ludicrous case of 
conscientious regard for " the rights of property." A traveler was 
plundered of the whole of his large sum of money. He pleaded suc- 
cessfully with the robber for a little of it to enable him to reach his 
home. But, putting his hand rather deeper into the bag of stolen 
coins than comported with the views of the robber, he was arrested 
with the cry, " Why, man, have you no conscience ?" You will 
perhaps inquire, whether abolitionists regard all the slaves of the South 
as stolen — as well those born at the South, as those, who were confess- 
edly stolen from Africa 1 I answer, that we do — that every helpless 
new-born infant, on which the chivalry of the South pounces, is, in our 
judgment, the owner of itself — that we consider, that the crime of man* 
stealing, which is so terribly denounced in the Bible, does not consist, 
as is alleged, in stealing a slave from a third person, but in stealing 



22 

him from himself — in depriving him of self-control, and subjecting him, 
as property, to the absolute control of another. Joseph's declaration, 
that he " was stolen," favors this definition of man-stealing. Jewish 
Commentators authorise it. Money, as it does not own itself, cannot be 
stolen from itself But when we reflect, that man is the owner of him- 
self, it does not surprise us, that wresting away his inalienable rights — 
his very manhood — should have been called man-stealing. 

Whilst on this subject of " the rights of property," I am reminded 
ofyour" third impediment to abolition." This "impediment" con- 
sists in the fact of the great value of the southern slaves — which, ac- 
cording to your estimation, is not less than " twelve hundred millions 
of dollars." I will adopt your estimate, and thus spare myself from 
going into the abhorrent calculation of the worth in dollars and cents 
of immortal man — of the worth of" the image of God." I thank you 
for your virtual admission, that this wealth is grasped with a tenacity 
proportioned to its vast amount. Many of the wisest and best men of 
the North have been led into the belief, that the slaveholders of the 
South are too humane and generous to hold their slaves for the sake 
of gain. Even Dr. Channing was a subject of this delusion ; and it is 
well remembered, that his too favorable opinions of his fellow men, 
made it difficult to disabuse him of it. Northern Christians have 
been ready to believe, that the South would give up her slaves, because 
of her conscious lack of title to them. But in what age of the world 
have impenitent men failed to cling as closely to that, which they had 
obtained by fraud, as to their honest acquisitions ? Indeed, it is de- 
monstrable on philosophical principles, that the more stupendous the 
fraud, the more tenacious is the hold upon that, which is gotten by it. 
I trust, that your admission to which I have just referred, will have no 
small effect to prevent the Northern apologist for slavery from repeating 
the remark, that the South would gladly liberate her slaves, if she saw 
any prospect of bettering the condition of the objects of her tender and 
solicitous benevolence. I trust, too, that this admission will go far to 
prove the emptiness of your declaration, that the abolitionists " have 
thrown back for half a century the prospect of any species of emanci- 
pation of the African race, gradual or immediate, in any of the states," 
and the emptiness of your declaration, that, " prior to the agitation of 
this subject of abolition, there was a progressive melioration in the con- 
dition of slaves throughout all the slave states," and that " in some of 
them, schools of instruction were opened," &c. ; and I further trust, 
that this admission will render harmless your intimation, that this 
"melioration" and these "schools" were intended to 'prenare the 



23 

slaves for freedom. After what you have said of the great value of 
the slaves, and of the obstacle it presents to emancipation, you will 
meet with little success in your endeavors to convince the world, 
that the South was preparing to give up the " twelve hundred millions 
of dollars," and that the naughty abolitionists have postponed her gra. 
tification " for half a century." If your views of the immense value 
of the slaves, and of the consequent opposition to their freedom, be cor- 
rect, then the hatred of the South towards the abolitionists must be, not 
because their movements tend to lengthen, but because they tend to 
shorten the period of her possession of the " twelve hundred millions 
of dollars." May I ask you, whether, whilst the South clings to these 
" twelve hundred millions of dollars," it is not somewhat hypocritical 
in her to be complaining, that the abolitionists are fastening the 
" twelve hundred millions of dollars" to her ? And may I ask you, 
whether there is not a little inconsistency between your own lamenta- 
tions over this work of the abolitionists, and your intimation that the 
South will never consent to give up her slaves, until the impossibility, of 
paying her " twelve hundred millions of dollars" for them, shall have 
been accomplished ? Puerile and insulting as is your proposition to 
the abolitionists to raise "twelve hundred millions of dollars" for the 
purchase of the slaves, it is nevertheless instructive ; inasmuch as it 
shows, that, in your judgment, the South is as little willing to give up 
her slaves, as the abolitionists are able to pay " twelve hundred mil- 
lions of dollars" for them ; and how unable the abolitionists are to pay 
a sum of money far greater than the whole amount of money in the 
world, I need not explain. 

But if the South must have "twelve hundred millions of dollars" 
to induce her to liberate her present number of slaves, how can you 
expect success for your scheme of I'idding her of several times the 
present number, "in the progress of some one hundred and fifty, or 
two hundred years ?" Do you reply, that, although she must have 
" four hundred dollars" a-piece for them, if she sell them to the aboli- 
tionists, she is, nevertheless, willing to let the Colonization Society 
have them without charge? There is abundant proof, that she is not. 
During the twenty-two years of the existence of that Society, not so 
many slaves have been emancipated and given to it for expatriation, 
as are born in a single week. As a proof that the sympathies of the 
South are all with the slaveholding and real character of this two- 
faced institution, and not at all with the abolition purposes and tenden- 
cies, which it professes at the North, none of its Presidents, (and slave- 



34 

holders only are deemed worthy to preside over it,) has ever contri- 
buted from his stock of slaves to swell those bands of emigrants, who, 
leaving our shores in the character of " nuisances," are instantly 
transformed, to use your own language, into " missionaries, carrying 
with them credentials in the holy cause of Christianity, civilization, 
and free institutions." But you were not in earnest, when you held up 
the idea in your recent speech, that the rapidly multiplying millions of 
our colored countrymen would be expatriated. What you said on that 
point was but to indulge in declamation, and to round off a paragraph. 
It is in that part of your speech where you say that " no practical 
scheme for their removal or separation from us has yet been devised 
or proposed," that you exhibit your real sentiments on this subject, and 
impliedly admit the deceitfulness of the pretensions of the American 
Colonization Society. 

Before closing my remarks on the topic of " the rights of property," 
I will admit the truth of your charge, that Abolitionists deny, that the 
slaveholder is entitled to '^ compensation^' for liberating his slaves. 

Abolitionists do not know, why he, who steals men is, any more than 
he, who steals horses, entitled to " compensation" for releasing his 
plunder. They do not know, why he, who has exacted thirty years' 
unrequited toil from the sinews of his poor oppressed brother, should 
be paid for letting that poor oppressed brother labor for himself the re- 
maining ten or twenty years of his life. But, it is said, that the South 
bought her slaves of the North, and that we of the North ought there- 
fore to compensate the South for Uberating them. If there are individ- 
uals at the North, who have sold slaves, I am free to admit, that they 
should promptly surrender their ill-gotten gains ; and no less promptly 
should the inheritors of such gains surrender them. But, however 
this may be, and v/hatever debt may be due on this score, from the 
North to the South, certain it is, that on no principle of sound ethics, 
can the South hold to the persons of the innocent slaves, as security 
for the payment of the debt. Your state and mine, and I would it 
were so with all others, no longer allow the imprisonment of the 
debtor as a means of coercing payment from him. How much less, 
then, should they allow the creditor to promote the security of his debt . 
by imprisoning a third person — and one who is wholly innocent of 
contracting the debt ? But who is imprisoned, if it be not he, who is 
shut up in " the house of bondage ?" And who is more entirely 
innocent than he, of the guilty transactions between his seller and 
buyer ? 

Another of your charges against abolitionists is, that, although " ut- 



25 

terly destitute of Constitutional or other rightful power — living in 
totally distinct communities — as alien to the communities in which the 
subject on which they would operate resides, so far as cojicerns political 
power over that subject, as if they lived in Africa or Asia ; they never 
theless promulgate to the world their purpose to be, to manumit forthwith, 
and without compensation, and without moral preparation, three millions 
of negro slaves, under jurisdictions altogether separated from those 
under ivhich they live." 

I will group with this charge several others of the same class. 

1. Abolitionists neglect the fact, that'^ the slavery which exists amongst 
us (southern people) is our affair — not theirs — and that they have no 
more just concern with it, than they have with slavery as it exists through- 
out the world." 

2. They are regardless of the " deficiency of the powers of the Gene- 
ral Government, and of the acknoioledged and incontestable powers of the 
States." 

3. *' Superficial men [meaning no doubt abolitionists) confound the to- 
tally different cases together of the powers of the British Parliament and 
those of the Congress of the United States in the matter of slavery J'^ 

Are these charges any thing more than the imagery of your own 
fancy, or selections from the numberless slanders of a time-serving 
and corrupt press ? If they are founded on facts, it is in your power 
to state the facts. For my own part, I am utterly ignorant of any, 
even the least, justification for them. I am utterly ignorant that the 
abolitionists hold any peculiar views in relation to the powers of the 
General or State Governments. I do not believe, that one in a hun- 
dred of them supposes, that slavery in the states is a legitimate sub- 
ject of federal legislation. I believe, that a majority of the intelligent 
men amongst them accord much more to the claims of " state sove- 
reignty," and approach far more nearly to the character of " strict 
constructionists," than does the distinguished statesman, who charges 
them with such latitudinarian notions. There may be persons in our 
country, who believe that Congress has the absolute power over all 
American slavery, which the British Parliament had over all British 
slavery ; and that Congress can abolish slavery in the slave states, 
because Great Britain abolished it in her West India Islands ; but, I 
do not know them ; and were I to look for them, I certainly should not 
confine my search to abolitionists — for abolitionists, as it is very natural 
they should be, are far better instructed in the subject of slavery and 
4 



26 

Its connections with civil government, than are the community in 
general. 

It is passing strange, that you, or any other man, w^ho is not playing 
a desperate game, should, in the face of the Constitution of the Ame- 
rican Anti-Slavery Society, which " admits, that each state, in which 
slavery exists, has, by the Constitution of the United States, the exclu- 
sive right to legislate in regard to the abolition of slavery in said state ;" 
make such charges, as you have done. 

In an Address " To the Public," dated September 3, 1 835, and sub- 
scribed by the President, Treasurer, the three Secretaries, and the other 
five members of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Sla- 
very Society, we find the following language. 1. " We hold that 
Congress has no more right to abolish slavery in the Southern states 
than in the French West India Islands. Of course we desire no na- 
tional legislation on the subject. 2. We hold that slavery can only be 
lawfully abolished by the legislatures of the several states in which it 
prevails, and that the exercise of any other than moral influence to in- 
duce such abolition is unconstitutional." 

But what slavery is it that the abolitionists call on Congress to abolish ? 
Is it that in the slave states ? No — it is that in the District of Columbia 
and in the territories — none other. And is it not a fair implication of 
their petitions, that this is the only slavery, which, in the judgment of 
the petitioners. Congress has power to abolish ? Nevertheless, it is in 
the face of this implication, that you make your array of charges. 

Is it true, however, that the North has nothing mare to do with sla- 
very in the states, than with slavery in a foreign country ? Does it not 
concern the North, that, whilst it takes many thousands of her voters to 
be entitled to a representative in Congress, there are districts at the 
South, where, by means of slavery, a few hundred voters enjoy this 
benefit. Again, since the North regards herself as responsible in com- 
mon with the South, for the continuance of slavery in the District of 
Columbia and in the Territories, and for the continuance of the inter- 
state traffic in human beings ; and since she believes slavery in the 
slave states to be the occasion of these crimes, and that they will 
all of necessity immediately cease when slavery ceases — is it not right, 
that she should feel that she has a "just concern with slavery ?" 
Again, is it nothing to the people of the North, that they may be called 
on, in obedience to a requirement of the federal constitution, to shoul- 
der their muskets to quell " domestic violence ?" But, who does not 
know, that this requirement owes its existence solely to the apprehen- 



27 

hension of servile insurrections ? — or, in other words, to the existence 
of slavery in the slave states ? Again, when our guiltless brothers 
escape from the southern prison-house, and come among us, we are 
under constitutional obligation to deliver them up to their stony-hearted 
pursuers. And is not slavery in the slave states, which is the occasion 
of our obligation to commit this outrage on humanity and on the law 
of God, a matter of "just concern to us ?" To what too, but slavery, 
in the slave states, is to be ascribed the long standing insult of our 
government towards that of Hayti ? To what but that, our national dis- 
advantages and losses from the want of diplomatic relations between the 
two governments ? To what so much, as to slavery in the slave states, 
are owing the corruption in our national councils, and the worst of our 
legislation 1 But scarcely any thing should go farther to inspire the 
North with a sense of her "just concern" in the subject of slavery in 
the slave states, than the fact, that slavery is the parent of the cruel 
and murderous prejudice, which crushes and kills her colored people ; 
and, that it is but too probable, that the child will live as long as its pa- 
rent. And has the North no "just concern" with the slavery of the slave 
states, when there is so much reason to fear that our whole blood-guilty 
nation is threatened with God's destroying wrath on account of it ? 

There is another respect in which we of the North tiave a " just 
concern" with the slavery of the slave states. We see nearly three 
millions of our fellow men in those states robbed of body, mind, will, 
and soul — denied marriage and the reading of the Bible, and marketed 
as beasts. We see them in a word crushed in the iron folds of slavery. 
Our nature — the laws written upon its very foundations —the Bible, 
with its injunctions " to remember them that are in bonds as bound with 
ihem," and to " open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such 
as are appointed to destruction" — all require us to feel and to express 
what we feel for these wretched millions. I said, that we see this mi- 
sery. There are many amongst us — they are anti-abolitionists — who 
do not see it ; and to them God says ; " but he that hideth his eyes 
shall have many a curse." 

I add, that we of the North must feel concei'ned about slavery in the 
slave states, because of our obligation to pity the deluded, hard- 
hearted, and bloody oppressors in those states : and to manifest our 
love for them by rebuking their unsurpassed sin. And, notwithstanding 
pro-slavery statesmen at the North, who wink at the iniquity of slave- 
holding, and pro-slavery clergymen at the North, who cry, " peace,peace" 
to the slaveholder, and sew " pillows to armholes," tell us, that by our 



28 

honest and open rebuke of the slaveholder, we shall incur his enduring 
hatred ; we, nevertheless, believe that " open rebuke is better than 
secret love," and that, in the end, we shall enjoy more Southern favor 
than they, whose secret love is too prudent and spurious to deal faith- 
fully with the objects of its regard. " He that rebuketh a man, after- 
ward shall find more favor than he that flattereth with the tongue." The 
command, " thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer 
sin upon him," is one, which the abolitionist feels, that he is bound 
to obey, as well in the case of the slaveholder, as in that of any 
other sinner. And the question : " who is my neighbor," is so answered 
by the Savior, as to show, that not he of our vicinity, nor even he of 
our country, is alone our " neighbor." 

The abolitionists of the North hold, that they have certainly as much 
"just concern" with slavery in the slave states, as the temperance men 
of the North have with " intemperance" at the South. And I would here 
remark, that the weapons with which the abolitionists of the North attack 
slavery in the slave states are the same, and no other than the same, with 
those, which the North employs against the vice of intemperance at 
the South. I add too, that were you to say, that northern temperance 
men disregard "the deficiency of the powers of the General Govern- 
ment," and also " the acknowledged and incontestable powers of the 
states ;" your charge would be as suitable as when it is applied to 
northern abolitionists. 

You ascribe to us " the purpose to manumit the three millions of 
negro slaves." Here again you greatly misrepresent us, by holding 
us up as employing coercive, instead of persuasive, means for the 
accomplishment of our object. Our " purpose" is to persuade others to 
"manumit." The slaveholders themselves are to "manumit." It is 
evident, that others cannot " manumit" for them. If the North were 
endeavoring to persuade the South to give up the growing of cotton, 
you would not say, it is the purpose of the North to give it up. But, 
as well might you, as to say, that it is the " purpose" of the abolitionists 
to " manumit." It is very much by such misrepresentations, that the 
prejudices against abolitionists are fed and sustained. How soon 
they would die of atrophy, if they, who influence the public mind and 
mould public opinion, would tell but the simple truth about abolitionists. 

You say, that the abolitionists would have the slaves manumitted 
" without compensation and without moral preparation." I have 
already said enough on the point of "compensation." It is true, that 
they would have them manumitted immediately : — for they believe 



29 

slavery is sin, and that therefore the slaveholder has no right to pro- 
tract the bondage of his slaves for a single year, or for a single day 
or hour ; — not even, were he to do so to afford them " a moral prepar- 
ation" for freedom, or to accomplish any other of the kindest and best 
purposes. They believe, that the relation of slaveholder, as it es- 
sentially and indispensably involves the reduction of men to chattel- 
ship, cannot, under any plea whatever, be continued with innocence, 
for a single moment. If it can be — if the plain laws of God, in res- 
pect to marriage and religious instruction and many other blessings, of 
which chattelized man is plundered, can be innocently violated — why 
credit any longer the assertion of the Bible, that " sin is the transgres- 
sion of the law ?" — why not get a new definition of sin ? 

Another reason with abolitionists in favor of immediate manumis- 
sion, is, that the slaves do not, as a body, acquire, whilst in slavery, 
any " moral preparation" for freedom. To learn to swim we must be 
allowed the use of water. To learn the exercises of a freeman, we 
must enjoy the element of liberty. I will not say, that slaves cannot 
be taught, to some extent, the duties of freemen. Some knowledge of 
the art of swimming may be acquired before entering the water. I 
have not forgotten what you affirm about the " progressive melioration 
in the condition of slaves," and the opening of " schools of instruction" 
for them " prior to the agitation of the subject of abolition ;" nor, have 
I forgotten, that I could not read it without feeling, that the creations 
of your fancy, rather than the facts of history, supplied this informa- 
tion. Instances, rare instances, of such " melioration" and of such 
" schools of instruction," I doubt not there have been : but, I am 
confident, that tlie Southern slaves have been sunk in depths of igno- 
rance proportioned to the profits of their labor. I have not the least 
belief, that the proportion of readers amongst them is one half so 
great, as it was before the invention of Whitney's cotton gin. 

Permit me to call your attention to a few of the numberless evidences, 
that slavery is a poor school for " moral preparation" for freedom. 
1st. Slavery turns its victims into thieves. " Who should be aston- 
ished," says Thomas S. Clay, a very distinguished slaveholder of 
Georgia, " if the negro takes from the field or corn-house the supplies 
necessary for his craving appetite and then justifies his act, and de- 
nies that it is stealing ?" What debasement in the slave does the 
same gentleman's i-emedy for theft indicate ? " If," says he, " the ne- 
gro is informed, that if he does not steal, he shall receive rice as an 
allowance ; and if he does steal, he shall not, a motive is held out 
which will counteract the temptation to pilfer." 2nd. Slavery reeks 



30 

with licentiousness. Another son of the South says, that the slave- 
holder's kitchen is a brothel, and a southern village a Sodom. The 
elabo.atc defence of slavery by Chancellor Harper of South Carolina 
justifies the heaviest accusations, that have been brought against it on 
the score of licentiousness. How could you blame us for deeply ab- 
horring slavery, even were we to view it in no other light than that in 
which the Dews and Harpers and its other advocates present it ? 3rd. 
Slavery puts the master in the place of God, and the master's law in 
the place of God's law ! " The negro," says Thomas S. Clay, " is 
seldom taught to feel, that he is punished for breaking God's law ! 
He only knows his master as law-giver and executioner, and the sole 
object held up to his view is to make him a more obedient and profita- 
ble slave. He oftener hears that he shall be punished if he steals, than 
if he breaks the Sabbath or swears ; and thus he sees the very threat- 
enings of God brought to bear on his master's interests. It is very 
manifest to him, that his own good is very far from forming the prima- 
ry reason for his chastisement : his master's interests are to be secur- 
ed at all events ; — God's claims are secondary, or enforced merely for 
the purpose of advancing those of his owner. His own benefit is the 
residuum after this double distillation of moral motive — a mere acci- 
dent." 4th. The laws of nearly all the slave-states forbid the teaching 
of the slaves to read. The abundant declarations, that those laws are 
without exception, a consequence of the present agitation of the ques- 
tion of slavery are glaringly false. Many of these laws were enacted 
lono- before this agitation ; and some of them long before you and I 
were born. Say the three hundred and fifty -three gentlemen of the 
District of Abbeville and Edgefield in South Carolina, who, the last 
year, broke up a system of oral religious instruction, which the Me- 
thodist Conference of that State had established amongst their slaves : 
" Intelligence and slavery have no affinity for each other." And when 
those same gentlemen declare, that " verbal and lecturing instruction 
will increase a desire with the black population to learn" — that "the 
progress and diffusion of knowledge will be a consequence" — and that 
" a progressive system of improvement will be introduced, that will 
ultimately revolutionize our civil institutions," they admit, that the 
nrohibition of " intelligence" to the slaves is the settled and necessary 
policy of slavery, and not, as you would have us believe, a temporary 
expedient occasioned by the present "agitation of this subject of 
abolition." 5th. Slavery — the system, which forbids marriage and 
the reading of the Bible — does of necessity turn its subjects into 
heathens. A Report of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, 



31 

made five years ago, says : "Who could credit it, that in these years 
of revival and benevolent effort — that, in this Christian Republic, 
there are over two millions of human beings in the condition of 
heathen, and in some respects in a worse condition ? They may be 
justly considered the heathen of this Christian country, and will bear 
CQmparison with heathen in any country in the world." I will finish 
what I have to say on this point of " moral preparation" for fi*eedom, 
with the remark, that the history of slavery in no country warrants 
your implication, that slaves acquire such " moral preparation." 
The British Parliament substituted an apprenticeship for slavery with 
the express design, that it should afford a " moral preparation" for 
freedom. And yet, if you will read the reports of late visitors to the 
British West Indies, you will find, that the planters admit, that they 
made no use of the advantages of the apprenticeship to prepare 
their servants for liberty. Their own gain — not the slaves' — was 
their ruling motive, during the term of ihe apprenticeship, as wellas 
preceding it. 

Another of your charges is, that the abolitionists " have increased the 
rigors of legislation against slaves in most if not nil the slave States." 

And suppose, that our principles and measures have occasioned 
this evil — are they therefore wrong ? — and are we, therefore, involved 
in sin ? The principles and measures of Moses and Aaron were the 
occasion of a similar evil. Does it follow, that those principles 
and measures were wa-ong, and that Moses and Aaron were res- 
ponsible for the sin of Pharaoh's increased oppressiveness ? The 
truth, which Jesus Christ preached on the earth, is emphatically peace : 
but its power on the depravity of the human heart made it the occa- 
sion of division and violence. That depravity was the guilty cause of 
the division and violence. The truth was but the innocent occasion 
of them. To make it responsible for the effects of that depravity 
would be as unreasonable, as it is to make the holy principles of the 
anti-slavery cause responsible for the wickedness which they occa. 
sion : and to make the great Preacher Himself responsible for the 
division and violence, would be but to carry out the absurdity, of w^hich 
the public are guilty, in holding abolitionists responsible for the 
mobs, which are got up against them. These mobs, by the way, are 
called " abolition mobs." A similar misnomer would pronounce the 
mob, that should tear down your house and shoot your wife, " Henry 
Clay's mob." Harriet Martineau, in stating the fact, that the mobs of 
1834, in the city of New York, were set down to the wrong account, 



32 

says, that the abolitionists were told, that "they had no business to 
scare the city with the sight of their burning property and demolished 
churches !" 

No doubt the light of truth, which the abolitionists are pouring into 
the dark den of slavery, greatly excites the monster's wrath : and it may 
be, that he vents a measure of it on the helpless and innocent victims 
within his grasp. Be it so ; — it is nevertheless, not the Ithuriel spear 
of truth, that is to be held guilty of the harm : — it is the monster's own 
depravity, which cannot 

" endure 
Touch of celestial temper, but returns 
Of force to its own likeness." 

I am, however, far from believing, that the treatment of the slaves is 
rendered any more rigorous and cruel by the agitation of the subject 
of slavery. I am very far from believing, that it is any harsher now 
than it was before the organization of the American Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety. Fugitive slaves tell us, it is not : and, inasmuch as the slave- 
holders are, and, by both words and actions, abundantly show, that 
they feel that they are, arraigned by the abolitionists before the bar of 
the civilized world, to answer to the charges of perpetrating cruelties 
on their slaves, it would, unless indeed, they are of the number of 
those " whose glory is in their shame," be most unphilosophical to con- 
clude, that they are multiplying proofs of the truth of those charges, 
more rapidly than at any former stage of their barbarities. That 
slaveholders are not insensible to public opinion and to the value of a 
good character was strikingly exhibited by Mr. Calhoun, in his place 
in the Senate of the United States, when he followed his frank dis- 
claimer of all suspicion, that the abolitionists are meditating a war 
against the slaveholder's person, with remarks evincive of his sensi- 
tiveness under the war, which they are waging against the slaveholder's 
character. 

A fact occurs to me, which goes to show, that the slaveholders feel 
themselves to be put upon their good behavior by the abolitionists. 
Although slaves are murdered every day at the South, yet never, until 
very recently, if at all, has the case occurred, in which a white man 
has been executed at the South for the murder of a slave. A {ew 
months ago, the Southern newspapers brought us copies of the docu- 
ment, containing the refusal of Governor Butler of South Carolina to 
pardon a man, who had been convicted of the murder of a slave. 
This document dwells on the protection due to the slave ; and, if I 



33 

fully recollect its character, au abolitionist himself could hardly have 
prepared a more appropriate paper for the occasion. Whence such a 
document — whence, in the editorial captions to this document, the ex- 
ultation over its triumphant refutations of the slanders of the abolition- 
ists against the South — but, that Governor Butler feels — but, that the 
writers of those captions feel — that the abolitionists have put the South 
upon her good behavior. 

Another of your charges is, that the abolitionists oppose " the project 
of colonization." 

Having, under another head, made some remarks on this " project," 
I will only add, that we must oppose the American Colonization So- 
ciety, because it denies the sinfulness of slavery, and the duty of im- 
mediate, unqualified emancipation. Its avowed doctrine is, that, unless 
emancipation be accompanied by expatriation, perpetual slavery is to 
be preferred to it. Not to oppose that Society, would be the guiltiest 
treachery to our holy religion, which requires immediate and uncon- 
ditional repentance of sin. Not to oppose it, would be to uphold sla- 
very. Not to oppose it, would be to abandon the Anti-Slavery Society. 
Do you ask, why, if this be the character of the American Colonization 
Society, many, who are now abolitionists, continued in it so long ? I 
answer for myself, that, until near the period of my withdrawal from 
it, I had very inadequate conceptions of the wickedness, both of that 
Society, and of slavery. For having felt the unequalled sin of slavery 
no more deeply — for feeling it now no more deeply, I confess myself 
to be altogether v/ithout excuse. The great criminality of my long 
continuance in the Colonization Society is perhaps somewhat palliated 
by the fact, that the strongest proofs of the wicked character and 
tendencies of the Society were not exhibited, until it spread out its 
wing over slavery to shelter the monster from the earnest and effective 
blows of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 

Another of your charges is, that the abolitionists, in declaring " that 
their object is not to stimulate the action of the General Government, but 
to operate upon the States themselves, in which the institution of domestic 
slavery exists," are evidently insincere, since the " abolition societies and 
movements are all confined to thef)ee Slates." 

I readily admit, that our object is the abolition of slavery, as well in 
the slave States, as in other portions of the Nation, where it exists. 
But, does it follow, because only an insignificant share of our " aboli- 
tion societies and movements" is in those States, that we therefore 
depend for the abolition of slavery in them on the General Govern- 

5 



34 

ment, rather than on moral influence ? I need not repeat, that the 
charge of our looking to the General Government for such abolition 
is refuted by the language of the Constitution of the Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety. You may, however, ask — " why, if you do not look to the 
General Government for it, is not the great proportion of your means 
of moral influence in the slave States, where is the great body of the 
slaves ?" I answer that, in the first place, the South' does not permit 
us to have them there ; and that, in the words of one of your fellow 
Senators, and in the very similar words of another — both uttered on 
the floor of the Senate — " if the abolitionists come to the South, the 
South will hang them." Pardon the remark, that it seems very dis- 
ingenuous in you to draw conclusions unfavorable to the sincerity of 
the abolitionists from premises so notoriously false, as are those which 
imply, that it is entirely at their own option, whether the abolitionists 
shall have their •' societies and movements" in the free or slave States. 
I continue to answer your question, by saying, in the second place, 
that, had the abolitionists full liberty to multiply their " societies and 
movements" in the slave States, they would probably think it best to 
have the great proportion of them yet awhile in the free States, To 
rectify public opinion on the subject of slavery is a leading object with 
abolitionists. This object is already realized to the extent of a tho- 
rough anti-slavery sentiment in Great Britain, as poor Andrew Ste- 
venson, for whom you apologise, can testify. Indeed, the great power 
and pressure of that sentiment are the only apology left to this dis- 
graced and miserable man for uttering a bald falsehood in vindication 
of Virginia morals. He above all other men, must feel the truth of 
the distinguished Thomas Fowel Buxton's declaration, that " England 
is turned into one great Anti-Slavery Society." Now, Sir, it is such a 
change, as abolitionists have been the instruments of producing in 
Great Britain, that we hope to see produced in the free States. We 
hope to see public sentiment in tliese States so altered, that such of 
their laws, as uphold and countenance slavery, will be repealed — so 
altered, that the present brutal treatment of the colored population in 
them will give place to a treatment dictated by justice, humanity, and 
brotherly and Christian love ; — so altered, that there will be thousands, 
where now there are not hundreds, to class the products of slave labor 
with other stolen goods, and to refuse to eat and to wear that, which 
is wet with the tears, and red with the blood of " the poor innocents,' ' 
whose bondage is continued, because men are more concerned to buy 
what is cheap, than what is honestly acquired ; — so altered, that our 



35 

Missionary and other religious Societies will remembei', that God says : 
" I hate robbery for burnt-offering," and will forbear to send their 
agents after that plunder, which, as it is obtained at the sacrifice of 
the body and soul of the plundered, is infinitely more unfit, than the 
products of ordinary theft, to come into the Lord's treasury. And, 
when the warm desires of our hearts, on these points, shall be realized, 
the fifty thousand Southerners, who annually visit the North, for pur- 
poses of business and pleasure, will not all return to their homes, self- 
complacent and exulting, as now, when they carry with them the suf- 
frages of the North in favor of slavery : but numbers of them will 
return to pursue the thoughts inspired by their travels amongst the 
enemies of oppression — and, in the sequel, they will let their " oppressed 
go free." 

It were almost as easy for the sun to call up vegetation by the 
side of an iceberg, as for the abolitionists to move the South extensive- 
ly, whilst their influence is counteracted by a pro-slavery spirit at the 
North. How vain would be the attempt to reform the drunkards of 
your town of Lexington, whilst the sober in it continue to drink in- 
toxicating liquors ! The first step in the reformation is to induce the 
sober to change their habits, and create that total abstinence-atmos- 
phere, in the breathing of which, the drunkard lives, — and, for the 
want of which, he dies. The first step, in the merciful work of deliv- 
ering the slaveholder from his sin, is similar. It is to bring him under 
the influence of a corrected public opinion — of an anti-slavery senti- 
ment : — and they, who are to be depended on to contribute to this 
public opinion — to make up this anti-slavery sentiment — are those, 
who are not bound up in the iron habits, and blinded by the mighty 
interests of the slaveholder. To depend on slaveholders to give the 
lead to public opinion in the anti-slavery enterprise, would be no less 
absurd, than to begin the temperance reformation with drunkards, and 
to look to them to produce the influences, which are indispensable to 
their own redemption. 

You say of the abolitionists, that " they are in favor of amal- 
gamation." 

The Anti-Slavery Society is, as its name imports, a society to op- 
pose slavery — not to "make matches." Whether abolitionists are 
inclined to amalgamation more than anti-abolitionists are, I will not 
here take upon myself to decide. So far, as you and I may be re- 
garded as representatives of these two parties, and so far as our mar- 
riages argue our tastes in this matte i", the abolitionists and anti-aboli- 



36 

tionists may be set down, as equally disposed to couple white with 
white and black with black — for our wives, as you are aware, are both 
white. I will here mention, as it may further argue the similarity in the 
matrimonial tastes of abolitionists and anti-abolitionists, the fact so 
grateful to us in the days, when we were " workers together" in pro- 
moting the " scheme of Colonization," that our wives are natives of 
the same town. 

I have a somewhat extensive acquaintance at the North ; and I can 
truly say, that I do not know a white abolitionist, who is the reputed 
father of a colored child. At the South there are several hundred 
thousand persons, whose yellow skins testify, that the M^hite man's blood 
courses through their veins. Whether the honorable portion of their 
parentage is to be ascribed exclusively to the few abolitionists scatter, 
ed over the South — and who, under such supposition, must, indeed, be 
prodigies of industry and prolificness — or whether anti-abolitionists 
there have, notwithstanding all their pious horror of " amalgamation," 
been contributing to it, you can better judge than myself. 

That slavery is a great amalgamator, no one acquainted with the 
blended colors of the South will, for a moment, deny. But, that an 
increasing amalgamation would attend the liberation of the slaves, is 
quite improbable, when we reflect, that the extensive occasions of the 
present mixture are the extreme debasement of the blacks and their 
entire subjection to the will of the whites ; and that even should the 
debasement continue under a state of freedom, the subjection would 
not. It is true, that the colored population of our country might in a 
state of freedom, attain to an equality with the whites ; and that a multi- 
plication of instances of matrimonial union between the two races 
might be a consequence of this equality : but, besides that this would 
be a lawful and sinless union, instead of the adulterous and wicked 
one, which is the fruit of slavery, would not the improved condition of 
our down-trodden brethren be a blessing infinitely overbalancing all the 
violations of our taste, which it might occasion ? I say violations of 
our taste ; — for we must bear in mind that, offensive as the intermix- 
ture of different races may be to us, the country or age, which prac- 
tices it, has no sympathy whatever with our feeling on this point. 

How strongly and painfully it argues the immorality and irreligion 
of the American people, that they should look so complacently on the 
" amalgamation," which tramples the seventh commandment under 
foot, and yet be so offended at that, which has the sanction of lawful 
wedlock ! When the Vice President of this Nation was in nomina- 
tion for his present office, it was objected to him, that he had a family 



37 

of colored children. The defence, set up by his j>artisans, was, that, 
although he had such a family, he nevertheless was uot married to their 
mother ! The defence was successful ; and the charge lost all its 
odiousness ; and the Vice President's popularity was retrieved, when, 
it turned out, that he was only the adulterous, and not the married 
father of his children ! 

I am aware, that many take the ground, that we must keep the slaves 
in slavery to prevent the matrimonial " amalgamation," which, they 
apprehend, would be a fruit of freedom. But, however great a good, 
abolitionists might deem the separation o^ the white and black races, 
and however deeply they might be impressed with the power of slavery 
to promote this separation, they, nevertheless, dare not " do evil, that 
good may come :" — they dare not seek to promote this separation, at 
the fearful expense of upholding, or in anywise, countenancing a hu- 
manity-crushing and God-defying system of oppression. 

Another charge against the abolitionists is implied in the inquiry 
you make, whether since they do not "furnish in their own families or 
persons examples of intermairiage, they intend to contaminate the in- 
dustrious and laborious classes of society of the North by a revolting 
admixture of the black element.^'' 

This inquiry shows how difficult it is for southern minds, accustom, 
ed as they have ever been to identify labor with slavery, to conceive the 
true character and position of such " classes" at the North ; and 
also how ignorant they are of the composition of our Anti-Slavery so- 
cieties. To correct your misapprehensions on these points, I will brief- 
ly say, in the first place, that the laborers of the North are freemen 
and not slaves ; — that they marry whom they please, and are neither 
paired nor unpaired to suit the interests of the breeder, or seller, or 
buyer, of human stock : — and, in the second place, that the abolition- 
ists, instead of being a body of persons distinct from " the industrious 
and laborious classes," do, more than nineteen twentieths of them, be- 
long to those "classes." You have fallen into a great error in 
supposing, that abolitionists generally belong to the wealthy and aris- 
tocratic classes. This, to a great extent, is true of anti-abolitionists. 
Have you never heard the boast, that there have been anti-abolition 
mobs, which consisted of " gentlemen of property and standing?" 

You charge upon abolitionists " the purpose to create a pinching 
competition between black labor and white labor f and add, that "on the 
supposition of abolition the black class, migrating into the free states, 
would enter into competition with tlie white class, diminishing the wages 
of their labor." 



38 

In making this charge, as well as in making that which immediately 
precedes it, you have fallen into the error, that abolitionists do not 
belong to " the industrious and laborious classes." In point of fact, 
the abolitionists belong so generally to these classes, that if your charge 
be true, they must have the strange " purpose" of " pinching" 
themselves. 

Whether "the black class" would, or would not migrate, I am much 
more pleased to have you say what you do on this point, though it be 
at the expense of your consistency, than to have you say, as you do in 
another part of your speech, that abolition " would end in the extermi- 
nation or subjugation of the one race or the other." 

It appears to me highly improbable, that emancipation would be 
followed by the migration of the emancipated. Emancipation, which 
has already added fifty per cent, to the value of estates in the British 
West Indies, would immediately add as much to the value of the soil 
of the South. Much more of ii would be brought into use ; and, not- 
withstanding the undoubted truth, that the freedman performs twice 
as much labor as when a slave, the South would require, instead of any 
diminution, a very great increase of the number of her laborers. The 
laboring population of the British West India Islands, is one-third as 
large as that of the southern states ; and yet, since these islands have 
got rid of slavery, and have entered on their career of enterprize and 
industry, they find this population, great as it is, insufficient to meet 
the increased demand for labor. As you are aware, ihey are already 
inviting laborers of this and other countries to supply the deficiency. 
But what is the amount of cultivable land in those islands, compared 
with that in all the southern states ? It is not so extensive as the like 
land in your single state. 

But you may suppose, that, in the event of the emancipation of her 
slaves, the South would prefer white laborers. I know not why she 
should. Such are, for the most part, unaccustomed to her kinds of 
labor, and they would exact, because they would need, far greater 
wages than those, who had never been indulged beyond the gratifica- 
tion of their simplest wants. There is another point of view, in which 
it is still more improbable, that the black laborers of the South would 
be displaced by immigrations of white laborers. The proverbial at- 
tachment of the slave to his '' bornin-ground," (the place of his nativity,) 
would greatly contribute to his contentment with low wages, at the hands 
of his old master. As an evidence of the strong attachment of our south- 
ern colored brethren to their birth-places, I remark, that, whilst the free 
colored population of the free states increased from 1820 to 1830 but 



39 

nineteen per cent., the like population in the slave states increased, in 
the same period, thirty.five per cent ; — and this, too, notwithstanding 
the operation of those oppressive and cruel laws, whose enact- 
ment was dictated by the settled policy of expelling the free blacks 
from the South. 

That, in the event of the abolition of southern slavery, the emanci- 
pated slaves would migrate to the North, rather than elsewhere, is 
very improbable. Whilst our climate would be unfriendly to them, 
and whilst they would be strangers to our modes of agriculture, the 
sugar and cotton fields of Texas, the West Indies, and other portions 
of the earth, would invite them to congenial employments beneath con- 
genial skies. That, in case southern slavery is abolished, the colored 
population of the North would be drawn off to unite with their race at 
the South, is, for reasons too obvious to mention, far more probable 
than the reverse. 

It will be difficult for you to persuade the North, that she would 
suffer in a pecuniary point of view by the extirpation of slavery. The 
consumption of the laborers at the South would keep pace with the 
improvement and elevation of their condition, and would very soon im- 
part a powerful impulse to many branches of Northern industry. 

Another of your charges is in the following words : " The subject 
of slavery within the District of Florida," and that '• of the right of 
Congress to prohibit the removal of slaves from one state to another," 
are, with abolitionists, "but so many masked batteries, concealing the 
real and ultimate point of attack. I'hat point of attack is the institu- 
tion of domestic slavery, as it exists in those states." 

If you mean by this charge, that abolitionists think that the abolition 
of slavery in tlie District of Columbia and in Florida, and ihe sup. 
pression of the inter-state traffic in human beings are, in themselves, 
of but little moment, you mistake. If you mean, that they think them 
of less importance than the abolition of slavery in the slave states, 
you are right ; and if you further mean, that they prize those objects 
more highly, and pursue them more zealously, because they think, that 
success in them will set in motion very powerful, if not indeed resist, 
less influences against slavery in the slave states, you are right in this 
also. I am aware, that the latter concession brings abolitionists under 
the condemnation of that celebrated book, written by a modern 
limiter of " human responsibility" — not by the ancient one, who ex- 
claimed, " Am I my brother's keeper ?" In that book, to which, by 
the way, the infamous Atherton Resolutions are indebted for their key- 
note, and grand pervading idea, we find the doctrine, that even if it 



40 

were the duty of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia, the North nevertheless should not seek for such abolition, unless 
the object of it be " ultimate within itself." If it be "for the sake of 
something ulterior" also — if for the sake of inducing the slaveholders 
of the slave states to emancipate their slaves — then we should not seek 
for it. Let us try this doctrine in another application — in one, where 
its distinguished author will not feel so much delicacy, and so much 
fear of giving offence, His reason why we should not go for the abo- 
lition of slavery in the District of Columbia, unless our object in it be 
" ultimate within itself," and unaccompanied by the object of producing 
an influence against slavery in the slave states, is, that the Federal 
Constitution has left the matter of slavery in the slave states to those 
states themselves. But will President Wayland say, that it has done 
so to any greater extent, than it has left the matter of gambling-houses 
and brothels in those states to those states themselves ? He will 
not, if he consider the subject : — though, I doubt not, that when he 
wrote his bad book, he was under the prevailing error, that the 
Federal Constitution tied up the hands and limited the power of the 
American people in respect to slavery, more than to any other vice. 

But to the other application. We will suppose, that Great Britain 
has put down the gambling- houses and brothels in her wide dominions 
— that Mexico has done likewise ; and that the George Thompsons, 
and Charles Stuarts, and other men of God, have come from England 
to beseech the people of the northern states to do likewise within their 
respective jurisdictions ; — and we will further suppose, that those fo- 
reign missionaries, knowing the obstinate and infatuated attachment 
of the people of the southern states to their gambling-houses and bro- 
thels, should attempt, and successfully, too, to blend with the motive of 
the people of the northern states to get rid of their own gambling, 
houses and brothels, the motive of influencing the people of the south- 
ern states to get rid of theirs — what, we ask, would this eminent divine 
advise in such a case ? Would he have the people of the northern 
states go on in their good work, and rejoice in the prospect, not only 
that these polluting and ruinous establishments would soon cease to 
exist within all their limits, but that the influence of their overthrow 
would be fatal to the like establishments in the southern states ? To 
be consistent with himself — with the doctrine in question — he must re- 
ply in the negative. To be consistent with himself, he must advise 
the people of the northern states to let their own gambling-houses and 
brothels stand, until they can make the object of their abolishment 



41 

"ultimate within itself;" — until they can expel from their hearts the 
cherished hope, that the purification of their own states of these haunts 
of wickedness would exert an influence to induce the people of their 
sister states to enter upon a similar work of purity and righteousness. 
But I trust, that President Wayland would not desire to be consistent 
with himself on this point. I trust that he would have the magnanimity 
to throw away this perhaps most pernicious doctrine of a pernicious 
book, which every reader of it must see was written to flatter and 
please the slaveholder and arrest the progress of the anti-slavery cause. 
How great the sin of seizing on this very time, when special efforts 
are being made to enlist the world's sympathies in behalf of the 
millions of our robbed, outraged, crushed countrymen — how great 
the sin, of seizing on such a time to attempt to neutralize those 
efforts, by ascribing to the oppressors of these millions a character- 
istic " nobleness" — " enthusiastic attachment to personal right" — 
'• disinterestedness which has always marked the southern character" 
— and a superiority to all others " in making any sacrifice for the pub- 
lie good!" It is this sin — this heinous sin — of which President Way- 
land has to repent. If he pities the slave, it is because he knows, that 
the qualities, which he ascribes to the slaveholder, d»not, in fact, belong 
to him. On the other hand, if he believes the slaveholder to be, what 
he represents him to be, he does not — in the very nature of things, he 
cannot — pity the slave. He must rather rejoice, that the slave has 
fallen into the hands of one, who, though he has the name, cannot 
have the heart, and cannot continue in the relation of a slaveholder. 
If John Hook, for having mingled his discordant and selfish cries with 
the acclamations of victoiy and the general joy, deserved Patrick Hen- 
ry's memorable rebuke, what does he not deserve, who finds it in his 
heart to arrest the swelling tide of pity for the oppressed by praises 
of the oppressor, and to drown the public lament over the slave's sub- 
jection to absolute power, in the congratulation, that the slaveholder 
who exercises that power, is a being of characteristic " nobleness," 
" disinterestedness," and " sacrifice" of self-interest ? 

President Wayland may perhaps say, that the moral influence, which 
he is unwilling to have exerted over the slaveholder, is not that, which 
IS simply persuasive, but that, which is constraining — not that, which is 
simply inducing, but that, which is compelling. I cheerfully admit, that 
it is infinitely better to induce men to do right from their own appro- 
bation of the right, than it is to shame them, or in any other wise con- 
strain them, to do so ; but I can never admit, that I am not at liberty to 
6 



42 

effect the release of my colored brother from the fangs of his murder- 
ous oppressor, when I can do so by bringing public opinion to bear 
upon that oppressor, and to fill him with uneasiness and shame. 

I have not overlooked the distinction taken by the reverend gentle, 
man ; though, I confess that, to a mind no less obtuse than my own, it 
is very little better than "a distinction without a difference." Whilst 
he denies, that I can, as an American citizen, rightfully labor for the 
abolition of slavery in the slave states, or even in the District of Co. 
lumbia ; he would perhaps, admit that, as a man, I might do so. But 
am I not interested, as an American citizen, to have every part of my 
country cleared of vice, and of whatever perils its free institutions ? 
Am I not interested, as such, to promote the overthrow of gambling and 
rum-drinking establishments in South Carolina ? — but why any more 
than to promote the overthrow of slavery ? In fine, am I not inter- 
ested, as an American citizen, to have my country, and my whole 
country, " right in the sight of God ?" If not, I had better not be an 
American citizen. 

I say no more on the subject of the sophistries of President Way- 
land's book on, " The limitations of human responsibility ;" nor 
would I have said what I have, were it not that it is in reply to the lik 
sophistries couched in that objection of yours, which I have now been 
considering. 

Another of your charges against the abolitionists is, that they seek to 
" stimulate the rage of the people of the free states against the people of the 
slave states. Advertisements of fugitive slaves and of slaves to he sJd 
are carefully collected and blazoned forth to infuse a spirit of detestation 
and hatred against one entire and the largest section of the Union." 

The slaveholders of the South represent slavery as a heaven-born 
institution — themselves as patriarchs and patterns of benevolence — 
and their slaves, as their tenderly treated and happy dependents. The 
abolitionists, on the contrary, think that slavery is from hell — that slave- 
holders are the worst of robbers — and that their slaves are the wretch, 
ed victims of unsurpassed cruelties. Now, how do abolitionists pro- 
pose to settle the points at issue ? — by fanciful pictures of the abomina- 
tions of slavery to countervail the like pictures of its blessedness ? — by 
mere assertions against slavery, to balance mere assertions in its 
favor ? No — but by the perfectly reasonable and fair means of examin- 
ing slavery in the light of its own code — of judging of the character 
of the slaveholder in the light of his own conduct — and of arguing the 
condition of the slave from unequivocal evidences of the light in 
which the slave himself views it. To this end we publish extracts 



43 

from the southern slave code, which go to show that slavery subjects 
its victims to the absolute control of their erring fellow men — that it 
withholds from them marriag ■ and the Bible — that it classes them with 
brutes and things — and annihilates the distinctions between mind and 
matter. To this end we republish in part, or entirely, pamphlets and 
books, in which southern men exhibit, with their own pens, some of the 
horrid features of slavery. To this end we also republish such adver- 
tisements as you refer to — advertisements in wliich immortal beings, 
made in the image of God, and redeemed by a Savior's blood, and 
breathed upon by the Holy Spirit, are offered to be sold, at public 
auction, or sheriff's sale, in connection with cows, and horses, and 
ploughs : and, sometimes we call special attention to the common fact, 
that the husband and wife, the parent and infant child, are advertised to 
be sold together or separately, as shall best suit purchasers. It is to this 
end also, that we often republish specimens of the other class of ad- 
vertisements to which you refer. Some of the advertisements of this 
class identify the fugitive slave by the scars, which the whip, or the 
manacles and fetters, or the rifle had made on his person. Some of them 
offer a reward for his head ! — and it is to this same end, that we often 
refer to the ten thousands, who have fled from southern slavery, and 
the fifty fold that number, who have unsuccessfully attempted to Hy 
from it. How unutterable must be the horrors of the southern prison 
house, and how strong and undying the inherent love of liberty to in- 
duce these wretched fellow beings to brave the perils which cluster so 
thickly and frightfully around their attempted escape '/ Thai love is 
indeed undying. The three hundred and fifty-three South Carolina 
gentlemen, to whom I have referred, admit, that even " the old negro 
man, whose head is white with age, raises his thoughts to look through 
the vista which will terminate his bondage." 

I put it to your candor — can you object to the reasonableness and 
fairness of these modes, which abolitionists have adopted for estab- 
lishing the truth on the points at issue between themselves and slave- 
holders ? But, you may say that our republication of your own represen- 
tations of slavery proceeds from unkind motives, and serves to stir up 
the " hatred,"and " rage of the people of the free states against the people 
of the slave states." If such be an effect of the republication, although 
not at all responsible for it, we deeply regret it ; and, as to our motives, 
we can only meet the affirmation of their unkindness with a simple 
denial. Were we, however, to admit the unkindness of our motives, 
and that we do not always adhere to the apostolic motto, of " speaking 
the truth in love" — would the admission change the features of sla- 



44 

very, or make it any the less a system of pollution and blood ? Is the 
accused any the less a murderer, because of the improper motives 
with which his accuser brings forward the conclusive proof of his 
blood-guiltiness ? 

We often see, in the speeches and writings of the South, that 
slaveholders claim as absolute and as rightful a property in their 
slaves, as in their cattle Whence then their sensitiveness under 
our republication of the advertisements, in which they offer to sell 
their human stock ? If the south will republish the advertisements of 
our*property, we will only not be displeased, but will thank her ; and 
any rebukes she may see fit to pour upon us, for offering particular kinds 
of property, will be very patiently borne, in view of the benefit we shall 
reap from her copies of our advertisements. 

A further charge in your speech is, that the aholitionists pursue, their 
object •' reckless of all consequences, however calamitous they may be ;" 
that they have no horror of a " civil war^^ or " a dissolution of the 
Union ,•" that theirs is " a bloody road," and " their purpose is abolition^ 
universal abolition, peaceably if it can, forcibly if it viust." 

It is true that, the abolitionists pursue their object, undisturbed by 
apprehensions of consequences ; but it is not true, that they pursue it 
" reckless of consequences." We believe that they, who unflinchingly 
press the claims of God's truth, deserve to be considered as far less 
" reckless of consequences," than they, who, suffering themselves to be 
thrown into a panic by apprehensions of some mischievous results, local 
or general, immediate or remote, are guilty of compromising the truth, 
and substituting corrupt expediency for it. We believe that the conse- 
quences of obeying the truth and following God are good — only good — 
and that too, not only in eternity, but in time also. We believe, that had 
the confidently anticipated deluge of blood followed the abolition of sla- 
very in the British West Indies, the calamity would have been the con- 
sequence, not of abolition, but of resistance to it. The insanity, which 
has been known to follow the exhibition of the claims of Christianity, is 
to be charged on the refusal to fall in with those claims, and not on our 
holy religion. 

But, notwithstanding, we deem it our duty and privilege to con. 
fine ourselves to the word of the Lord, and to make that word suffice 
to prevent all fears of consequences ; we, nevertheless, employ addi- 
tional means to dispel the alarms of those, who insist on walking " by 
sight ;" and, in thus accommodating ourselves to their want of faith, 
we are justified by the example of Him, who, though he said, " blessed 
are they that have not seen and yet have believed," nevertheless per- 



45 

mitted an unbelieving disciple, both to see and to touch the prints of 
the nails and the spear. When dealing with such unbelievers, we do 
not confine ourselves to the " thus saith the Lord" — to the Divine 
command, to " let the oppressed go free and break every yoke" — to 
the fact, that God is an abolitionist : but we also show how contrary to 
all sound philosophy is the fear, that the slave, on whom have been heap- 
ed all imaginable outrages, will, when those outrages are exchanged 
for justice and mercy, turn and rend his penitent master. When deal- 
ing with such unbelievers, we advert to the fact, that the insurrections 
at the South have been the work of slaves — not one of them of persons 
discharged from slavery : we show how happy were the fruits of 
emancipation in St. Domingo : and that the "horrors of St. Domingo," 
by the parading of which so many have been deterred from espousing our 
righteous cause, were the result of the attempt to re-establish slavery. 
When dealing with them, we ask attention to the present peaceful, 
prosperous, and happy condition of the British West India Islands, 
which so triumphantly falsifies the predictions, that bankruptcy, vio- 
lence, bloodshed, and utter ruin would follow the liberation of their 
slaves. We point these fearful and unbelieving ones to the fact of the 
very favorable influence of the abolition of slavery on the price of real 
estate in those islands ; to that of the present rapid multiplication of 
schools and churches in them ; to the fact, that since the abolition of 
slavery, on the first day of August 1834, not a white man in all those 
islands has been struck down by the arm of a colored man ; and then 
we ask them whether in view of such facts, they are not prepared 
to believe, that God connects safety with obedience, and that it is best 
to " trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own 
understanding." 

On the subject of " a dissolution of the Union," I have only to say, 
that, on the one hand, there is nothing in my judgment, which, under 
God, would tend so much to preserve our Republic, as the carrying 
out into all our social, political and religious institutions of its great 
foundation principle, that " all men are created equal;" and that, on 
the other hand, the flagrant violation of that principle in the system 
of slavery, is doing more than all things else to hasten the destruction 
of the Republic. I am aware, that one of the doctrines of the South is, 
that " slavery is the cornei'-stone of the republican edifice." But, if it 
be true, that our political institutions harmonize with, and are sustained 
by slavery, then the sooner we exchange them for others the better. I 
am aware, that it is said, both at the North and at the South, th at it is 
essential to the preservation of the Union. But, greatly as I love the 



46 

Union, and much as I would sacrifice for its righteous continuance, 1 
cannot hesitate to say, that if slavery be an indispensable cement, the 
sooner it is dissolved the better. 

I am not displeased, that you call ours " a bloody road" — for this lan- 
guage does not necessarily implicate our motives ; but I am greatly 
surprised that you charge upon us the wicked and murderous " pur- 
pose" of a forcible abolition. In reply to this imputation, I need only 
refer you to the Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society — 
to the Declaration of the Convention which framed it — and to our 
characters, for pledges, that we design no force, and are not likely to 
stain our souls with the crime of murder. That Constitution says : 
" This society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindi. 
eating their rights by resorting to physical force." The Declaration says : 
" Our principles forbid the doing of evil that good may come, and lead 
us to reject, and to entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all carnal 
weapons for deliverance from bondage. Our measures shall be such 
only, as the opposition of moral purity to moral corruption — the de- 
struction of error by the potency of truth — the overthrow of prejudice 
by the power of love — and the abolition of slavery by the spirit of re- 
pentance." As to our characters they are before the world. You 
would probably look in vain through our ranks for a horse- racer, a 
gambler, a profane person, a rum-drinker, or a duellist. More than 
nine-tenths of us deny the rightfulness of offensive, and a large majority, 
even that of defensive national wars. A still larger majority believe, that 
deadly weapons should not be used in cases of individual strife. And, 
if you should ask, " where in the free States are the increasing numbers 
of men and women, who believe, that the religion of the unresisting 
* Lamb of God' forbids recourse to such weapons, in all circumstances, 
either by nations or individuals?" — the answer is, " to a man, to a 
woman, in the ranks of the abolitionists." You and others will judge 
for yourselves, how probable it is, that the persons, whom I have de- 
scribed, will prove worthy of being held up as murdeiers. 

The last of your charges against the abolitionists, which I shall ex- 
amine, is the following : Having begun " their operations by professing 
to employ only persuasive means^'' they " have ceased to employ the in- 
struments of reason and persuasion,^' and " they now propose to substi- 
tute the poieers of the ballot box ;'^ and "the inevitable tender cy of 
their proceedings is, if these should be found insufjicient, to invoke 
finally the more potent powers of the bayonet.'''' 

If the slaveholders would but let us draw on them for the six or 



47 

eight thousand dollars, which we expend monthly to sustain our presses 
and lecturers, they would then know, from an experience too painful 
to be forgotten, how truthless is your declaration, that we " have 
ceased to employ the instruments of reason and persuasion." 

You and your friends, at first, employed " persuasive means" against 
"the sub-treasury system." Afterwards, you rallied voters against it. 
Now, if this fail, will you resort to " the more potent powers of the 
bayonet ?" You promptly and indignantly answer, " No." But, why 
will you not? Is it because the prominent opposers of that system 
have more moral worth — more religious horror of blood — than Arthur 
Tappan, William Jay, and their prominent abolition friends ? Were 
such to be your answer, the public would judge, whether the men of 
peace and purity, who compose the mass of abolitionists, would be 
more likely than the Clays and Wises and the great body of the fol- 
lowers of these Congressional leaders to betake themselves from a dis- 
appointment at " the ballot-box" to " the more potent powers of the 
bayonet?" 

You say, that we " now propose to substitute the powers of the 
ballot-box," as if it were only of late, that we had proposed to do so. 
What then means the following language in our Constitution : " The 
society will also endeavor in a Constitutional way to influence Con- 
gress to put an end to the domestic slave-trade, and to abolish slavery 
in all those portions of our common country, which come under its 
control — especially in the District of Columbia — and likewise to pre- 
vent the extension of it to any State, that may be hereafter admitted to 
the Union ?" What then means the following language in the " De- 
claration" of the Convention, which framed our Constitution : •' We 
also maintain, that there are at the present time the highest obliga- 
tions resting upon the people of the Free States to remove slavery by 
moral and political action, as prescribed in tlie Constitution of the 
United States?" If it be for the first time, that we "now propose" 
" political action," ivhat means it, that anti-slavery pi-esses have, from 
year to year, called on abolitionists to remember the slave at the polls ? 

You are deceived on this point ; and the rapid growth of our cause 
has been the occasion of your deception. You suppose, because it is 
only within the last few months, that you have heard of abolitionists 
in this country carrying their cause to " the ballot box," that it is only 
within the last few months that they have done so. But, in point of 
fact, some of them have done so for several years. It was not, how- 
ever, until the last year or two, when the number of abolitionists had 
become considerable, and their hope of producing an impression on 



48 

the Elections proportionately strong, that many of them were seenbrintr- 
ing their abolition principles to the " ballot-box." Nor was it until the 
Elections of the last Autumn, that abolition action at "the ballot-box" 
had become so extensive, as to apprise the Nation, that it is a principle 
with abolitionists to " remember" in one place as well as in another — 
at the polls as well as in the closet — " them that are in bonds." The 
fact that, at the last State Election, there were three or four hundred 
abolition votes given in the County in which I reside, is no more real 
because of its wide spread interest, than the comparatively unheard of 
fact, that about one hundred such votes were given the year before. 
By the way, when T hear complaints of abolition action at the " ballot- 
box," I can hardly refrain from believing, that they are made ironically. 
When I hear complaints, that the abolitionists of this State rallied, as 
such, at the last State Election, I cannot easily avoid suspecting, that 
the purpose of such complaints is the malicious one of reviving in our 
breasts the truly stinging and shame-filling recollection, that some 
five-sixths of the voters in our ranks, either openly apostatized from 
our principles, or took it into their heads, that the better way to vote 
for the slave and the anti-slavery cause was to vote for their respec- 
tive political parties. You would be less afraid of the abolitionists, if I 
should tell you that more than ten thousand ot them in this State voted at 
the last State Election, for candidates for law makers, who were openly in 
favor of the law of this State, which creates slavery, and of other laws, 
which countenance and uphold it. And you would owe me for one of 
your heartiest laughs, were I to tell you, that there are abolitionists — 
professed abolitionists — yes, actual members of the Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety — who, carrying out this delusion of helping the slave by helping 
their " party," say, that they would vote even for a slaveholder, if their 
party should nominate him. Let me remark, however, that 1 am 
happy to be able to inform you, that this delusion — at least in my own 
State — is fast passing away; and that thousands of the abolitionists^ 
who, in voting last Autumn for Gov. Marcy or Gov. Seward, took the 
first step in the way, that leads to voting for the slaveholder himself, 
are now not only refusing to take another step in that inconsistent and 
wicked way, but are repenting deeply of that, which they have already 
taken in it. 

Much as you dislike, not to say dread, abolition action at " the bal- 
lot-box," I presume, that I need not spend any time in explaining to 
you the inconsistency of which an abolitionist is guilty, who votes for 
an upholder of slavery. A wholesome citizen would not vote for a 
candidate for a law maker, who is in favor of laws, which authorize 



49 

gaming-houses or groggeries. But, in the eye of one, who has attempted 
to take the " guage and dimensions" of the hell of slavery, the laws, 
which authorize slaveholding, far transcend in wickedness, those, 
which authorize gaming-houses or groggeries. You would not vote 
for a candidate for a law-maker, who is in favor of •' the sub-treasury 
system." But compared with the evil of slavery, what is that of the 
most pernicious currency scheme ever devised ? It is to be " counted 
as the small dust of the balance." If you would withhold your vote 
in the case supposed — how gross ia your eyes must be the inconsis- 
tency of the abolitionist, who casts his vote on the side of the system 
of fathomless iniquity ! 

I have already remarked on " the third" of the " impediments" or 
" obstacles" to emancipation, which you bring to viev/. " The first 
impediment" you say, " is the utter and absolute want of all power on 
the part of the General Government to effect the purpose." 

But because there is this want on the part of the General Govern- 
ment, it does not follow, that it also exists on the part of the States : 
nor does it follow, that it also exists on the part of the slaveholders 
themselves. It is a poor plea of your neighbor for continuing to hold 
his fellow man in slavery, that neither the Federal Government nor 
the State of Kentucky has power to emancipate them. Such a plea is 
about as valid, as that of the girl for not having performed the task, 
which her mistress had assigned to her. " I was tied to the table." 
" Who tied you there ?" " I tied myself there." 

*' The next obstacle" you say, " in the tcay of abolition arises out of 
the fact of the presence in the slave states of three millions of slaves." 

This is, indeed a formidable " obstacle :" and I admit, that it is as 
much more diiFicult for the impenitent slaveholder to surmount it, than 
it would be if there were but one million of slaves, as it is for the im- 
penitent thief to restore the money he has stolen, than it would be, if 
the sum were one third as great. But, be not discouraged, dear sir, 
v/ith this view of the case. Notwithstanding the magnitude of the 
obstacle, the warmest desires of your heart for the abolition of slave- 
ry, may yet be realized. Be thankful, that repentance can avail in 
every case of iniquity; that it can loosen the grasp of the man-thief, 
as well as that of the money-thief: of the oppressors of thousands as well 
as of hundreds : — of "three millions," as well as of one million. 

But, were I to allow, that the obstacle in question, is as great, as 

you regard it — nevertheless will it not increase with the lapse of 

years, and become less superable the longer the work of abolition is 

postponed? I suppose, however, that it is not to be disguised, that, 

7 



50 

notwithstanding the occasional attempts in the course of your speech 
to create a different impression, you are in favor of perpetual slavery ; 
and that all you say about " ultra abolitionists" in distinction from 
" abolitionists," and about " gradual emancipation," in distinction from 
" immediate emancipation," is said, but to please those, who sincere, 
ly make, and are gulled by, such distinctions. I do not forget, that you 
say, that the abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania was proper. But, 
most obviously, you say it, to win favor with the anti-slavery portion 
of the North, and to sustain the* world's opinion of your devotion to 
the cause of universal liberty ; — for, having made this small conces- 
sion to that holy cause — small indeed, since Pennsylvania never at 
any one time, had five thousand slaves — you, straightway, renew your 
claims to the confidence of slaveholders, by assuring them, that you 
are opposed to " any scheme whatever of emancipation, gradual or 
immediate," in States where the slave population is extensive ; — and, 
for proof of the sincerity of your declaration, you refer them to the 
fact of your recent open and effective opposition to the overthrow 
of slavery in your own State. 

The South is opposed to gradual, as well as to immediate emanci- 
pation: and, were she, indeed, to enter upon a scheme of gradual 
emancipation, she would speedily abandon it. The objections to 
swelling the number of her free colored population, whilst she con- 
tinued to hold their brethren of the same race in bondage, would be 
found too real and alarming to justify her perseverance in the scheme. 
How strange, that men at the North, who think soundly on other sub- 
jects, should deduce the feasibility of gradual emancipation in the slave 
states — in some of which the slaves outnumber the free — from the fact 
of the like emancipation of the comparative handful of slaves in New 
York and Pennsylvania ! 

You say, " It is frequently asked, what will become of the African 
race among us ? Are they forever to remain in bondage ? That ques- 
tion was asked more than half a century ago. It has been answered by 
fifty years of prosperity!'^ 

The wicked man, " spreading himself like the green bay tree," 
would answer this question, as you have. They, who " walk after their 
own lusts, saying, where is the promise of his coming — for since the 
fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of 
the creation?" would answer it, as you have. They, whose "heart is fully 
set in them to do evil, because sentence against an evil work is not exe- 
cuted speedily," would answer it, as you have. But, however you or they 
mav answer it, and although God may delay his ''coming" and the execu- 



51 

tion of his " sentence,"^ it, nevertheless, remains true, that "it shall be 
well with them that fear God, but it shall not be well with the wicked." 

" Fifty years of prosperity !" On whose testimony do we learn, 
that the last " tifty years" have been " years of prosperity" to the 
South ? — on the testimony of oppressors or on that of the oppressed ? — 
on that of her two hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders — for this 
is the sum total of the tyrants, who rule the South and rule this nation 
— or on that of her two millions and three quarters of bleeding and 
crushed slaves ? It may well be, that those of the Souih, who " have 
lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton and have nourished their 
hearts as in a day of slaughter," should speak of " prosperity :" but, 
before we admit, that the " pi-osperity," of which they speak, is that of 
the South, instead of themselves merely, we must turn our weeping 
eyes to the " laborers, who have reaped down" their oppressors' 
"fields without wages," and the "cries" of whom "are entered into 
the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth ;" and we must also take into the 
account the tears, and sweat, and groans, and blood, of the millions of 
similar laborers, whom, during the last " fifty years," death has mer- 
cifully released from Southern bondage. Talks the slaveholder of the 
" prosperity" of the South 1 It is but his own " prosperity" — and a 
*' prosperity," such as the wolf may boast, when gorging on the flock. 

You say, that the people of the North would not think it "neighborly 
and friendly^'' if " the people of the slave states were to form societies, 
subsidize presses, make large pecuniary contributions, ^c. to burn the 
beautiful capitals, destroy the productive manufactories, and. sink the 
gallant ships of the northern states," 

Indeed, they would not ! But, if you were to go to such pains, 
and expense for the purpose of relieving our poor, doubling our wealth, 
and promoting the spiritual interests of both rich and poor — then we 
should bless you for practising a benevolence towards us, so like that, 
which abolitionists practise towards you ; and then our cliildren, and 
children's children, would bless your memories, even as your children 
and children's children will, if southern slavery be peacefully abolished, 
bless our memories, and lament that their ancestors had been guilty 
of construing our love into hatred, and our purpose of naught but good 
into a purpose of unmingled evil. 

Near the close of your speech is the remark : '^ I prefer the liberty 
of my own country to thai of any other people." 

Another distinguished American statesman uttered the applauded 
sentiment : " My country — my whole country — and nothing but my 



52 

country ;" — and a scarcely less distinguished countryman of ours com. 
manded the public praise, by saying : " My country right — but my 
country, right or wrong." Such are the expressions of patriotism — 
of that idolized compound of selfish and base affections ! 

Were I writing for the favor, instead of the welfare of my fellow, 
men, I should praise rather than denounce patriotism. Were I writing 
in accordance with the maxims of a corrupt world, instead of the truth 
of Jesus Christ, I should defend and extol, rather than rebuke the doc- 
trine, that we may prefer the interests of one section of the human 
family to those of another. If patriotism, in thfe ordinary acceptation 
of the word, be right, then the Bible is wrong — for that blessed book 
requires us to love all men, even as we love ourselves. How contrary 
to its spirit and precepts, that, 

" Lands intersected by a narrow frith, 
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed 
Make enemies of nations, vvlio had else. 
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one." 

There are many, who consider that the doctrine of loving all our 
fellow men as ourselves, belongs, to use your words, " to a sublime 
but impracticable philosophy." Let them, however, but devoutly 
ask Him, who enjoins it, to warm and expand their selfish and con- 
tracted hearts with its influences ; and they will know, by sweet expe- 
rience, that, under the grace of God, the doctrine is no less " practi- 
cable" than " sublime." Not a few seem to suppose, that he, who has 
come to regard the whole world as his country, and all mankind as his 
countrymen, will have less love of home and country than the patriot 
has, who makes his own nation, and no other, the cherished object of 
his affections. But did the Saviour, when on earth, love any individual 
the less, because the love of His great heart was poured out, in equal 
tides, over the whole human family ? And would He not, even in the eyes 
of the patriot himself, be stamped with imperfection, were it to appear, 
that one nation shares less than another in His " loving-kindness" — 
and that " His tender mercies are (not) over all his works ?" Blessed 
be His holy name, that He has cast down the " middle wall of parti- 
tion" between the Jew and Gentile ! — that there is no respect of per- 
sons with Him ! — that " Greek" and " Jew, circumcision and uncircum- 
cision, barbarian, Scythian, bond" and "free," are equal before Him ! 

Having said, " I prefer the lilerty of my own country to that of any 
other people^ you add — " and the liberty of my own race to that of any 
other race." 



63 

How perfectly natural, that the one sentiment should follow the 
other ! How perfectly natural, that he who can limit his love by state 
or national lines, should be also capable of confining it to certain va- 
rieties of the human complexion ! How perfectly natural, that, he who 
is guilty of the insane and wicked prejudice against his fellow men, 
because they happen to be born a dozen, or a hundred, or a thousand 
miles from the place of his nativity, should foster the no less insane 
and wicked prejudice against the " skin not colored like his own !" 
How different is man from God ! " He maketh his sun to rise on 
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the un- 
just." But were man invested with supreme control, he would not 
distribute blessings impartially even amongst the " good" and the 
"just." 

You close your speech with advice and an appeal to abolitionists. 
Are you sure that an appeal, to exert the most winning influence upon 
our hearts, would not have come from some other source better than 
from one who, not content with endeavoring to show the pernicious 
tendency of our principles and measures, freely imputes to us bloody 
and murderous motives 1 Are you sure, that you, who ascribe to us 
designs more diabolical than those of burning " beautiful capitals," and 
destroying "productive manufactories," and sinking " gallant ships," 
are our most suitable adviser ? We have, however, waved all excep- 
tion on this score to your appeal and advice, and exposed our minds 
and hearts to the whole power and influence of your speech. And 
now we ask, that you, in turn, will hear us. Pi'esuming that you are 
too generous to refuse the reciprocation, we proceed to call on you to 
stay your efibrts at quenching the world's sympathy for the slave — at 
arresting the progress of liberal, humane, and Christian sentiments — 
at upholding slavery against that Almighty arm, which now, " after so 
long a time," is revealed for its destruction. We urge you to worthier 
and more hopeful employments. Exert your great powers for the re- 
peal of the matchlessly wicked laws enacted to crush the Saviour's 
poor. Set a happy and an influential example to your fellow slave- 
holders, by a righteous treatment of those, whom you unrighteously 
hold in bondage. Set them this example, by humbling yourself before 
God and your assembled slaves, in unfeigned penitence for the deep 
and measureless wrongs you have done the guiltless victims of your 
oppression — by paying those meii, (speak of them, think of them, no 
longer, as brutes and things) — by paying these, who are my brother 
men and your brother men, the " hire" you have so long withheld 
from them, and " which crieth" to Heaven, because it " is of you kept 



54 

back"— -by breaking the galling yoke from their necks, and letting 
them " go free." 

Do you shrink from our advice — and say, that obedience to its just 
requirements would impoverish you 1 Infinitely better, that you be 
honestly poor than dishonestly rich. Infinitely better to " do justly," 
and be a Lazarus ; than to become a Crcesus, by clinging to and accu- 
mulating ill-gotten gains. Do you add to the fear of poverty, that of 
losing your honors — those which are anticipated, as well as those, 
which already deck your brow ? Allow us to assure you, that it will 
be impossible for you to redeem " Henry Clay, the statesman," and 
*' Henry Clay, the orator," or even " Henry Clay, the President of the 
United States," from the contempt of a slavery-loathing posterity, 
otherwise than by coupling with those designations the inexpressibly 
more honorable distinction of " Henry Clay, the emancipator." 

I remain, 

Your friend, 

GERRIT SMITH. 



